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Hello dakka,

I'm building my second DA devastator squad, and wanted to know your opinions on the ideal layouts. I currently run one with three missile launchers and a lascanon. My main target would be mec elites or tanks.

I like me a squad of all lascannons killed a couple riptides with those boys

Hate to say it, but grav.

 nudibranch wrote:
Hate to say it, but grav.

I used to share the same sentiment, but then I started using Grav and realised one very important truth: Not only do you have to be reasonable at list building for them to be effective, but you also have to be good at how you use them. Using them as an Alpha-Strike tool (e.g. on a Devastator Squad in the Skyhammer Annihilation Force Formation) or on 5-man Tactical Squads or Crusader Squads in Rhinos are two very good ways of using them.

Ultimately, the best loadout for a Devastator Squad is based on how you want to use them and what you're up against. For example, taking a Dev Squad w/ Missile Launchers upgraded with Flakk Missiles isn't going to be particularly useful if your opponent has no intention of taking Flyers.

My best advice is always try to stick with four of the same weapon in a squad (e.g. 4x Lascannons or 4x Grav-Cannons etc etc etc) and try to tailor to what your opponent might bring. Unsure of what your opponent might bring? Magnetise! that way you can switch loadouts.

It's not the best but as a DA player I feel you should do plasma cannons!

For fluf reasons my tac squads run with plasma cannons already.

What are you trying to do?

Pop a deathstar unit? If your enemy is running some gak like a knight load them up with all grav, put a captain with cataphractii terminator armor in there, drop them right behind said death star enjoy your 25 grav shots. Or if you are feeling ballsy, put 4 multi meltas in there, even if 2 of them hit, thats 2 armor bane shots.

My 2 cents on how each weapon works out.

Lascannons - The old reliable tank hunter weapon and can perform double duty at effectively hurting MCs. Good range so you don't need to move, good AP to ignore armor/pop vehicles, and good strength to muscle through high AV and high toughness. Only downside is its high points cost for its low rate of fire.

Plasma Cannons - Take old reliable, drop its strength down two notches, lower the range a bit, make it a blast, and slap on gets hot for that imperial plasma experience. Blasts mean you can hit multiple models and its respectable strength will wound most of the time against most MCs (zogging T8 cheeseknights). Can still do work against lighter vehicles, better at crowd control, not so good at hurting solo MCs, but misses don't actually miss so much as just fly off in a random direction which may or may not be a good thing (can't jink if you weren't targeted so take that scatter bike). The FAQ made it so rerolling 1s allows you to reroll gets hot for blast which means any sort of reroll such as PE will make you plasmas quite reliable.

Heavy Bolters - While Lascannons and Plasmas are your heavy hitters of varying degrees of usefulness the Heavy Bolter excels at....... not a lot actually. S5 is nice but 3 shots is kinda dinky for something that is basically a *load metal slug voice clip* HEAVY MACHINE GUN. AP4 is nice but AP3 is the magic (knife through butter) benchmark as 4+ armor models tend to value cover heavily so its rarer to see 4+ armor infantry standing out in the open. Not enough strength or rate of fire to muscle down MCs or vehicles, not really all that great at killing infantry (kills guardsmen and footdar decently but so does a rolled up newspaper, a stiff breeze, or some harsh words). What they have going for them is a low points tag and they look awesome.

Multi Melta - While a lascannon likes to pop holes in hulls from across the board, a multi melta prefers to skip the whole "hole from range" thing and just melt the zogging thing down into a pile of molten slag and (depending on how 4th wall breaking you want to be) polystyrene. The trouble with this is that it is a heavy weapon, devs aren't relentless, its short range, said slagging power is very short range, you need to be close to the target, the ability to fire at long range is limited, did I mention its short ranged? Good thing is that its relatively cheap on points so if you can somehow get into close range and fire at full BS you would be melting with... well meltas.

Missile Launcher - If the lascannons are long range and powerful, heavy bolters cool looking but impractically bad at killing most things, and plasmas are blast weapons then combine them all and you get the Missile Launcher...... sorta.....no?..... ok fine its the "Jack of all Trades" option. The issue is that instead of being all of those things at the same time, it instead splits that role up and sorta takes on the worst aspects of each weapon. Krak missiles are basically Lascannons except you remove a strength, AP3 instead of 2... and well now your not really all that great at taking out vehicles. S8 is nice but its not 9 and AP3 is nice but it certainly isn't AP2 (watch that riptide laugh for the greater good as your krak missile plinks off that freshly painted Gundanium armor... no Gundanium? ok then Tautanium). Still single shot so it suffers from ROF issues but still its not terrible. Ok so I promised a bit of Plasma Cannon mixed and thankfully that doesn't mean it has gets hot. What it does have is blast (oh boy?!?) with the frag missile but not to be out done by the others it decides to double down on being low strength and is only S4 and has fairly negligible AP value. So how about that bolter rate of fire or maybe some ignore cover to one up that plasma cannon? Nope single shot S4 blast and they get all the cover saves they can muster.

Well that rounds out the roster of heavy weapons that are standard across the imperium and it really creates a wide variety of interesting weapons that each do a certain role and a master of none weapon to be versatile. Nothing is missing here at all.

I missed one?

Do I have to?

*sigh*

Grav Cannons - Salvo, High Rate of Fire, Ignores armor, rerolls to wound/armor pen, wounds the same as their armor value, immobilizes vehicles on 6s. It is the jack of all and master of everything cheese weapon. Only thing attempting to balance it is that its points cost is very high and its not all that great against super heavies because they can't be immobilized (still knocks a HP off on a 6). Low range + salvo and lack of relentless means it can be difficult to get close enough to shoot effectively. Good thing there isn't a means to get your devastators in close with relentless. If there was it would be terribly overpowered....OH MY GOD WHY!?!

Skyhammer- Drop Pod Devs that get relentless and you choose which turn they show up (1 or 2). Down side of Grav? Nope you don't have to worry as you can alpha strike like a boss with full effect Grav Cannons in grav range every time.

On a less chedder filled note those Multi Meltas go from duds to studs as that full BS melta action means you can melt face, armor, and treds without looking like a pinned, blind, shakened Tankbusta in the process.

Honestly, I don't use devs unless I have to for a formation. Since I can't use skyhammer, I have two grav and two heavy bolters in a Rhino.

 IllumiNini wrote:

Ultimately, the best loadout for a Devastator Squad is based on how you want to use them and what you're up against. For example, taking a Dev Squad w/ Missile Launchers upgraded with Flakk Missiles isn't going to be particularly useful if your opponent has no intention of taking Flyers.

Let's be honest here: Taking a Dev Squad w/ Missile Launchers upgraded with Flakk Missiles isn't going to be particularly good, period.

Someone else said that Grav devestators require careful play, but if we're being honest then that's true of all the Devestator options. Multi-Meltas are not going to do any good sitting in a firing squad, you need to launch them with a Cataphractii boss, or in a Skyhammer.

I actually like Plasma Cannons, when properly loaded out. If you have the Haemotrope Reactors nearby, and something to give them re-rolls on their Gets Hot and a boost to hit, (Devastator Doctrine works nicely, or a Librarian with Prescience if you didn't take Ultramarines,) and you've got a pretty devestating unit. Of course, taking that runs up the cost - You're either using your Chapter Tactics to get the rerolls you need, or else you're buying a Librarian - But 4 Large Blasts will put the hurt on a lot of enemies. Bonus points if you get Ignores Cover on them somehow, for extra deadly goodness.