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This is both a multiple choice poll, and a question of what you guys think are "Must-Haves" and "Situational" weapons for Legion Support Squads. So if you want to vote, and take an extra minute to discuss which special weapons you prioritize and why, or the pros and cons of different types, go for it, and much appreciated!



A. Flamer

B. Meltagun

C. Plasmagun

D. Rotor Cannon

E. Volkite Culverin

Flamer is a waste, too much armored ceremite, plasma too expensive and you'll lose your own troops, rotor cannon is a joke at S3. Leaves Volkite Culverin as the default choice.

For me i think that flamers have their place because they can just stack wounds up very easily.
Meltas are always good for slapping infantry and putting hurt onto deathstars as it can instkill most of the legion specific 2W termies and even if all the tanks have ceramite you can still do damage to them !
However Plasmas i feel are too expensive to take because you do run the risk of killing your own guys.
Rotor cannons are a little pointless i will agree there.
Volkite are another solid option for mass wounds and versatility.

Hope this helps

Plasma is always good. Volkite chargers work well on combat squads, calivers make for good objective holders, culverins great infantry and transport shredders. Dark Angels can make good use of heavy bolters and Thousand Sons can make good use of rotor cannons.

Plasma every time. Yeah, it's expensive, but it's the most likely to make its points back. Melta is ok if armored ceramite isn't popular in your meta, but the others are just bad. Flamers never live up to the hype because of their pathetic range and don't do much damage even when they do hit, rotor cannons are barely better than bolters, and volkites are heavy weapons (which is why they're so cheap) and aren't even all that impressive.

Only calivers are heavy (and are 30", so can sit back and act as a gunline), chargers are assualt 2, cheap and absolutely destroy cult militia armies (that aren't using SotDA.) Salamanders, DG and blackshields can all rock flamers pretty well. The only one that truly seems inferior are rotor cannons, and even then TS can make some use for them, to a degree.

plasma
volkite
flamer
melta
rotor

plasma is a decent all 'rounder
volkite, like flamers, are wonderful for forcing a billion saves
flamer, see volkite (plus as a DG player, shred is fun. and Salamanders like their higher Strength)
melta, while still good (since AC is hardly on every vehicle) still has the risk of AC being hard countered
rotor cannons are only 'passable' in 3 situations: Mechanicum Poison (2+) rotor cannons, Militia S: 4 rotor cannons, and Thousand Sons shredding rotor cannons.

Flamers are pure hype. The template means the odds of firing the whole squad is nearly zero, and you have to be less than 6" away to even get good coverage from your few front rank guys who do get to fire.

(Pariah) Flamers are amazingly good for Blackshields. Free upgrade lets them fire with torrent and gets hot. A 10 man unit of them can force an ungodly number of saves.

also: factor in extra CCWs for the flamer squads (and any other "assault" support weapons)

rush forward in an assault transport, pop out, flame punks, charge the survivors (pro-tip: don't do this against pure CC squads )

Flamer is good for cheapness and volume of hits (the range is so limited that they're heavily dependent on transports, though), plasmagun is good because it's actually something that's difficult to replicate easily in another squad. Meltaguns are okay, Armoured Ceramite makes them less good at killing vehicles than they should be but they're still cheaper than plasmaguns, S8/AP1 (so they're not bad at vehicle-killing), and they double out multi-wound Terminators. Volkite chargers are an okay pick but generally inferior to flamers (you may get longer range and the ability to glance Rhinos but when you're running on 15" range anyway you need to be able to move fast enough/drop in such that you can get the flamer hits, and unless you're fighting Thallaxii flamers are going to do more damage), calivers are a solid choice to put into a more gunline-oriented force without eating a Heavy Support slot (they're 2/3rds the price of a culverin heavy support squad for 1/2 the firepower at 2/3rds the range, but they're Scoring and live in a fairly non-crowded slot). Rotor cannons have too narrow a band in which they're actually useful to have a good time in an all-comers list.

So I guess my ordering is:

1. Flamer
2. Plasma gun
3. Volkite Culverin
4. Meltagun
5. Volkite Charger
6. Rotor Cannon

1: melta gun.
Plain and simple it can take out most issues you will face.
Always has been IMO too.

2: plasma gun.
Highly effective against most things.
Better rate of fire allows it to cut through the more elite units.

3: volkite culverin.
After facing a guy running 15 I found out just how effective they are.
Amazing range and rate of fire, decent strength and deflagate helps here and there.
I'd rate this as top against infantry lists.
Also fun for glancing to death and piling wounds on primarchs.

4: flamer.
Basic strength and short range with near non existent AP.
Majority of armies you face are marines so laugh them off.
Almost every mechanicum unit may aswell ignore it.
Solar units get hurt, but not enough to make this useful.

5: rotor cannon.
It's junk.
Great range but S3 and poor AP really don't do a thing.
The idea is high rate of fire to pile wounds.
Due to poor strength this struggles to do anything.
Only saving grace is bio corrosive rounds if you have access to them, and even then it would be 5th on my list.





Side note: just seen while typing you listed the culverin?
Sure your thinking the right weapon here as it's for heavy squads and leagues better than its smaller counterparts.
If it's the 2 special ones then it would still rank the same, just nowhere near as good.


May also be worth considering graviton guns in here too.
They have a fair few uses.
Most of which are preventative measures rather than offensive though.

I'm planning on building a flamer squad for my WE. Stick 'em in a Rhino and it's a cheap scoring unit with 10 flamers and chainaxes that I can push forward. I don't see anything to hate about that.

I think this question gets a little more complex depending on which legion you play as and/or play against.

Naturally Salamanders flamers are better and flamers against them are weaker.
Thousand Sons Rotor Cannons reroll to wound.
Dark Angels can get Plasma Repeaters instead of Plasma Guns.

I built my first Tactical Support Squad with Culverins, the reach is good with excellent wounding opportunity, and I don't plan to move them much once they've gotten where they are going.

I may go with the Rotor Cannons next but I will wait and see what (if anything) comes out for my XV'th Legion in the next few weeks before I commit

Should a support squad be 5-man or 10-man strong ?

 Khornate25 wrote:
Should a support squad be 5-man or 10-man strong ?

I will be building all of mine as ten strong (one of my Rites of war requires them to be of maximum possible size)