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I've never actually played against grav-weapons, but I'm pretty sure I will soon. It looks to me like the just use the target's armor save to wound. That doesn't seem as ridiculous as I'd heard they were. So...I still get an armor-save roll right? And even if I do not do Storm Shields get their invul save? Thanks for any help.

They wound you on your armour save and have AP2, so no armour saves allowed. You can still take cover or invulnerable saves though. They also immobilise vehicles on a roll of 6 and have 2-6 shots each depending on the varient and the unit carrying it.

Most of them have Grav amps as well that allows you to re-roll failed to wound rolls. The cannons also have 5 shots a piece so...no you will not have fun against them. They are horribly broken to the point of being the only heavy weapon worth taking for Space Marines and single handedly making that codex go from "ok" to one of the top tier codexes.

Wow....those suuuuuuuuuck. Thank you guys, thats a big help.

Yup, as a Chaos Player. When a unit of grav centurions fires at one of my units, I don't even bother letting him roll for anything. I just remove the unit and move on.

How facing Grav Weapons often goes for 1st time.

-Salvo weapons so they got 2 or 4 shots per each one .. Ok

-They wound you per armour save... Hm not bad kinda neat

-They have Grav amps, so i can re-roll for wounds... Ouch k still got a decent save to go.

-Well they are Ap2 ... Seriously?

Grav-amps are only for grav-cannons right?? Please don't tell me a dude rocking a grav-gun or pistol gets to reroll too. A bunch of those on bikes would be terrifying.

No re-rolls on bikes but they get to shoot at full salvo and range.

That's still pretty brutal!

Grav is really really good because people consistently bring things its good against.

Bring an Imperial Knight army and laugh as the grav basically harmlessly faffs about and you sawblade their faces in half, just as an example.

Or the Imperial Guard Emperor's Hammer superheavy tank company formation, as another example.

Well, let's see. One Grav Cannon outputs 5 shots, hitting on 3s, for 10/3 hits. Then each hit has an 11/36 chance of doing a Hull Point, for 110/108, or 55/54. So each Grav Cannon can reliably put a glance on a Knight if they manage to nab its unshielded side.

In other words, a full Grav Shyhammer will take down an IK in one turn on average-4 glances from the unshielded side, 2 from the shielded one.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Grav is really really good because people consistently bring things its good against.

Bring an Imperial Knight army and laugh as the grav basically harmlessly faffs about and you sawblade their faces in half, just as an example.

Or the Imperial Guard Emperor's Hammer superheavy tank company formation, as another example.

Not true in both cases, sadly.

At that points level you're facing skyhammers, and a competent skyhammer then adds in min/maxed eviscerators. 1400~ (minimum - 3x shadowsword + techpriest which is the absolute worst combo at that points level) for the SHC shakes out to 2 full grav skyhammers and well on the way to at least 1 chump grav dev squad. If taking smurf traits (because why wouldn't you) with reroll Dev to-hits, you're seeing at least 2 of the 3 Baneblade variants dead. There simply isn't any variant of the superheavys that can kill 8 units by itself in one turn unless your opponent doesn't know how blast weapons/thunderblitz works. With an especially unlucky roll for the eviscerators and perhaps melta bomb, an SHC can quite feasibly be wiped by an SHC's worth of grav Skyhammer in one turn. Indeed it's beyond feasible, it's happened to me, and largely why I don't even bother packing the SHC any more :|

Same again with Knights, say 3 knights is still a full grav skyhammer and option on another grav dev squad, with maybe *maybe* the exception of all 3 with battle cannon, missile launcher and gat gun they'll never even kill 2 squads before at least 2 knights are dead. Again with skyhammer you're all but guaranteed to lose one of them before retaliation since it'll get the knight on either both side armour, or just pump enough shots in that the shield doesn't matter.

It takes on average 54 hits to down a Baneblade with grav, if it doesn't have cover.

Each dev squad fires 25 times with 5 grav cannons, yes? Even if they all hit, they will not one-shot a baneblade even re-rolling against tanks. Edit: You would need 2 5-man with grav dev squads per killed Baneblade if you have good luck. If you have bad luck, it's very hard indeed.

6s not doing the extra hull-point per six against superheavies hurts them somewhat.

EDIT: If I did my math right, it's around 29-30 hits per Baneblade to kill it with re-rolling grav damage, so more than the 25 shots each squad can fire.

Also EDIT: I don't know what you're on about with eviscerators and meltabombs in a thread about grav XD.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
It takes on average 54 hits to down a Baneblade with grav, if it doesn't have cover.

Each dev squad fires 25 times with 5 grav cannons, yes? Even if they all hit, they will not one-shot a baneblade even re-rolling against tanks. Edit: You would need 2 5-man with grav dev squads per killed Baneblade if you have good luck. If you have bad luck, it's very hard indeed.

6s not doing the extra hull-point per six against superheavies hurts them somewhat.

EDIT: If I did my math right, it's around 29-30 hits per Baneblade to kill it with re-rolling grav damage, so more than the 25 shots each squad can fire.

Also EDIT: I don't know what you're on about with eviscerators and meltabombs in a thread about grav XD.

20 times with 4 grav cannons; one of which will be BS 5 and again, Smurf traits, reroll to hit for a typical spread of 17-19 hits. With the grav amps reroll to '6', you're getting an average of just under 6 glances each. In two squads w/o skyhammer that's still less than the shadowsword.

As for Melta/Eviscerator, it's turning the Skyhammer ASM into a non tax component. Since the value of skyhammer is in Grav Devs, it's fruitful to factor them in. If you prefer to drop the eviscerators for yet another grav dev squad ( 2 sets of Evi+melta upgrades is just shy of 4 grav cannons) the math works out even even less in favor of the SHC, as a max of 5 armour bane hits is considerably less threatening than another 17-18 grav hits.

Just personal opinion, i dont think the grav cannon would be as bad if they removed the grav amp from it. Honestly there is no reason for that to exist.

I'd use an aegis line w/ comm link to get a 2++ cover save if necessary as well as reserve manipulations on some assault from deep strike raptors. With skyhammer, it's more possible to mitigate the damage than it is with a full centstar.

Often times a grav cent squad has hunters eye libby so cover rarely helps defending grav stars. They are brutal. Most armies basically have to take it and then kill it fast. Or reserve units you know the cent star will delete.

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Just personal opinion, i dont think the grav cannon would be as bad if they removed the grav amp from it. Honestly there is no reason for that to exist.

Just let Salvo work as intended w/o circumventing it via Relentless / S&P. Grav Cannons are fine in a regular Tac Squad, and they're fine (if a bit squishy for their price) on a regular Dev Squad. It lessens their alpha strike which is the real issue. If you pod in with 3 shots per cannon and survive to a 2nd turn that's your opponents fault and should well be punished by you now having 5 shots per cannon.
Not sure what to do about Grav Cents though, maybe make them Twin-Linked when wielded by a S&P unit instead of Relentless?

My math doesn't match yours, malamis. I get 490 for 10 35 point gravs on 10 14 point marines - that's more expensive than a shadowsword at 455, even without the pods.

EDIT: Ah right, this isn't the Heresy where every guy has a grav cannon, so it's only 4 per squad. Still, that's 140 points of marines plus 280 for the grav cannons plus 70 for the pods, for 490 again; just have to include the pods (which is the only reason the gravs are in range anyways) to show why two grav dev squads in pods ought to kill a 455 point superheavy.

a 4 grav cannon dev squad is 245 points with a drop pod. It doesn't have ignore cover and has 5 power armor bodies. It is hard countered by 2+ cover and anything with interceptor. As in - it's basically only good at 1 thing - alpha striking wraith-knights.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
My math doesn't match yours, malamis. I get 490 for 10 35 point gravs on 10 14 point marines - that's more expensive than a shadowsword at 455, even without the pods.

EDIT: Ah right, this isn't the Heresy where every guy has a grav cannon, so it's only 4 per squad. Still, that's 140 points of marines plus 280 for the grav cannons plus 70 for the pods, for 490 again; just have to include the pods (which is the only reason the gravs are in range anyways) to show why two grav dev squads in pods ought to kill a 455 point superheavy.

Nobody takes dev squads larger than 5 dudes with the 4 heavy weapon max unless they want to cash in on the skyhammer suppression bonus, or have some other magic application to put them to which isn't served by alpha strikes.

EDIT:
Rechecking, I appear to have mistakenly used the Imperial Armour points costs instead of Mont'Ka/Cadia points costs in the above posts, corrections as follows:

The cheapest superheavy tank is the banehammer with s9 ap3 7" and a TL heavy bolter, 3 of which in the SHC with tax is still 1270. A min/maxed skyhammer of 8 grav cannons, 10 Jump ASM and 2 Drop pods is 1320. Let's assume that one of the banehammers has the Baneblade Sponson option to make the points even since you can't include servitors in the formation as written.

Assuming smurf traits granting rerolls to hit with the devastators and including signum/auspex bonus, hullpoints in the first volley would be:

15 x .75~ ( 4/6 + ([2/6] * [4/6])) = 11.25~
5 x .96~ ( 5/6 + ([1/6] * [5/6])) = 4.8~
--
16 hits including the ~ element and rounding down

16 * .31~ (1/6 +([5/6] * [1/6])) = 4.96

So 5 average, assuming perfectly equal % of rolling which even audited casino dice are incapable of doing. (Basic mechanics suggests the 6 & 5 results are more likely (center of gravity), but that's another thread)

So 5 hull points can be expected from a single grav dev squad with smurf traits, a single skyhammer will therefore with median dice put out at least 1 super heavy in the first turn, again not counting ASM. Let's assume it's the one with the sponsons.

A BaneHammer, assuming it has no cover (which the deep strike all but guarantees) and consequently the attackers have no cover but are intelligently spread out is going to kill, at perfect results, 1 squad, and 3 guys from another squad. Average it's going to be all but one in one squad, and none from the second.

In reality what'll happen is the pods will deep strike into ruins for a 4/3+ cover save on the devs, and may have been positioned to block line of sight. Consequently the AP3 not ignoring cover 7" blast will kill, maybe 2 grav cannons and a SGT. Again, we are still completely ignoring the ASM.

Now the perfect SHC loadout counter to the skyhammer would be 3 unupgraded hellhammers @ a painful 1620 inc tax which can feasibly kill the entire lot of them in one turn of shooting... but 1620 is 2 full skyhammers and a conclave of level 2 librarians with 30pts of upgrades, or 2 level 1s and Tiggy Smalls, aka Invisibility, with a melta bomb somewhere.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Just personal opinion, i dont think the grav cannon would be as bad if they removed the grav amp from it. Honestly there is no reason for that to exist.

Seconded |:

Hell make the grav amp give it an option on a single Large Blast instead and it'd be fine.

 malamis wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
My math doesn't match yours, malamis. I get 490 for 10 35 point gravs on 10 14 point marines - that's more expensive than a shadowsword at 455, even without the pods.

EDIT: Ah right, this isn't the Heresy where every guy has a grav cannon, so it's only 4 per squad. Still, that's 140 points of marines plus 280 for the grav cannons plus 70 for the pods, for 490 again; just have to include the pods (which is the only reason the gravs are in range anyways) to show why two grav dev squads in pods ought to kill a 455 point superheavy.

Grav-cannons are 35 ea dude - have you been thinking gravi*ton* cannons? I understand there is an actual difference in how they work between 30k and 40k.

Also, nobody takes dev squads larger than 5 dudes with the 4 heavy weapon max unless they want to cash in on the skyhammer suppression bonus, or have some other magic application to put them to which isn't served by alpha strikes.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Just personal opinion, i dont think the grav cannon would be as bad if they removed the grav amp from it. Honestly there is no reason for that to exist.

Seconded |:

Hell make the grav amp give it an option on a single Large Blast instead and it'd be fine.

Right, grav-cannons are 35 each dude, and each dude is 14, yes? Or are the guns 21 points each? And with 5-man, 4-gun squads, its 140 points of guns and 70 points of guys in a 35 point pod for 245 points per squad as Xenomancers notes. Using two squads is double 245, or 490. 490 points is more than the cost of a Shadowsword, and so needing two squads to kill a shadowsword is about what we would expect.

Imperial super-heavy tanks are extremely overpriced for what they do. Do the math against things that are actually competitive - like necron warriors or thunderwolf Calvary - you just aren't doing enough damage to justify getting blown up easily after the alpha strike.