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Ok, so after around 8 games of playing with at least 2 Helverins, I feel like I have a pretty good grasp on them. As an initial thought. I have to admit they are not quite as OP as I first believed. That being said, I still feel that they are very efficient for their points and a good unit to add to any Knight (or possibly soup) army.

I’m first going to give the pros and cons of Helverins, then explain their uses.

+guns are range 60, do 3 damage, and have an pretty consistent average of 8 shots
+14 inch movement
+ access to a lot of strong Knight traditions
+ pretty good duriblity stat durability (12 W, with 3+ 5++)
+great stratagem which allows full hit re-rolls against flyers for 1 CP
+fills a super heavy slot for cheap
+Trusty stubber

- mediocre ap and strength for their main guns (strength 7 AP -1 doesn’t usually cut it for an expensive ranged unit.)
- as soon as they get touched in CC they are next to worthless unless you dedicate something else to bail them out.

Ok so now that I’ve listed some facts you most likely already knew, let’s talk about Helverin tactics and uses. The best place to start is to view what Helverins are; useful utility units that hold objectives, chip off chunks of wounds from basically anything, and generally not die. Because they are so fast, shoot at a super long range, and have pretty good defensive stats, it’s pretty easy to keep them safe. Further compounding their innate ability to survive is that other threats (like your bigger knights) will attract a lot fire, making it hard to dedicate anything against the Helverins. This makes them excellent backfield objective sitters (especially in an all knight list) and allows them to shoot for a good portion of the game. Even though they might not oblterate a tank On turn 1 (though they can), some of the toughest opponent will suffer serious damage after 5 turns of substained fire.

One other big point in the Helverins favor is that it counters Dark Eldar hard. It’s relatively low S and AP is still enough to wound all dark elder vehicles on 3+ and get them to their 5++ night shield. Also, the re-roll hits stratagem always works meaning that 2 Helverins can take down close to 2 black heart ravagers a turn. In a meta like the one we have currently, being good against Dark Eldar is HUGE for a unit’s tournament viability.

So overall I really like the Helverin. A lot of people love to compare it the Warglaive (because they both fill a super heavy slot) but in reality they are very different units. Warglaives run up into enemy fire and CC where as Helverins avoid that stuff like the Nurgle plague. To put it simply Helverins are supposed to live while Warglaives are supposed to die. If you need more distraction units then warglaives are a better option. If you need more fire support go Helverins. Generally I like Helverins slightly more since Knights have already have units which fill the distraction carnifex niche, but there are plenty of lists where warglaives are better.

Congrats you made to the end of the Rant! I hope that it might have convinced you on the Heverin’s worth as they are certainly sweet.

That's useful. It kind of confirms what I expected, though I haven't yet run them. It's particularly useful to see the comparison with the Warglaiv - or demonstrating that there isn't really a comparison at all, as they have such different functions.

I've been wondering if Helverins are a good use of points in a Knight army. My experience with Warglaives is pretty mixed, as sometimes the enemy has been able to tie them up with hordes and frce me to try and rescue them - which hasn't always been possible. I expect you'd have the same problem with Helverins. I tend to think the same points spent on Crusaders would be better.

On the other hand, I can see a strong case for using Helverins in a soup list. A detachment of a Castellan and two Helverins would bring a bunch of great firepower for pretty much any imperial army. They'd bring 3 CPs and give you the option of making the Castellan your warlord.

One of the things Armigers of both kinds are useful for is filling out a list, wehre another 4-500 point knight won't fit. I took my warglaives to a recent tournament for this reason, and they managed ok most of the time. Against shooty armies it was helpful to have those other two guys running (very quickly) forward. By the end of the event I'd started to use full tilt on a warglaive rather than my Gallant, because it did the job of tying up my opponent's units.

Mandragola wrote:

On the other hand, I can see a strong case for using Helverins in a soup list. A detachment of a Castellan and two Helverins would bring a bunch of great firepower for pretty much any imperial army. They'd bring 3 CPs and give you the option of making the Castellan your warlord.
.

However, the Command Benefit of each
Imperial Knights Super-heavy Detachment
is changed to ‘None’ unless it contains any
combination of at least three QUESTORIS
CLASS and/or DOMINUS CLASS units.

So no, 2 Helverins and Castellan would not bring 3 CP's for Your army

Edit:
My bad. FAQed. This will work xD

Helverins are an absolute steal for their points. They put out 4d3 shots apiece at a high STR, flat 3 damage...

My predators wish they were that good for their points.

Gnollu wrote:

Mandragola wrote:

On the other hand, I can see a strong case for using Helverins in a soup list. A detachment of a Castellan and two Helverins would bring a bunch of great firepower for pretty much any imperial army. They'd bring 3 CPs and give you the option of making the Castellan your warlord.
.

However, the Command Benefit of each
Imperial Knights Super-heavy Detachment
is changed to ‘None’ unless it contains any
combination of at least three QUESTORIS
CLASS and/or DOMINUS CLASS units.

So no, 2 Helverins and Castellan would not bring 3 CP's for Your army

you might want to check the FAQ dude.

Ice_can wrote:
you might want to check the FAQ dude.

Yup, my bad. Already edited post not to confuse anybody.

Mandragola wrote:

On the other hand, I can see a strong case for using Helverins in a soup list. A detachment of a Castellan and two Helverins would bring a bunch of great firepower for pretty much any imperial army. They'd bring 3 CPs and give you the option of making the Castellan your warlord.

It’s like you read my mind, because that’s exactly how i prefer to run my Knights. The detachment ain’t cheap at around 950 points, but it answers all your long range fire power needs. With raven as a tradition the detachment has excellent mobility, and of course that nasty stratagem. I’d highly recommend try it out for yourself.

Has anyone been using them with a Knight Preceptor? I've only played one game with it an two Helverins and I'm not sure if I would be better off using a different big knight

I haven't used either, but can't seem much point in combining them. The Helverins want to stay at range but the Preceptor wants to go in close. Buying a 419 point model so that a 174 point one can reroll to hit sounds far from ideal!

A preceptor might be an ok choice if you're using warglaives. Up close it's a good knight, and those rerolls of 1s will help somewhat. You could give it landstrider to try and boost them into turn one charges - which could actually be pretty doable with house Terryn even without using full tilt.

Salt donkey wrote:

Mandragola wrote:

On the other hand, I can see a strong case for using Helverins in a soup list. A detachment of a Castellan and two Helverins would bring a bunch of great firepower for pretty much any imperial army. They'd bring 3 CPs and give you the option of making the Castellan your warlord.

It’s like you read my mind, because that’s exactly how i prefer to run my Knights. The detachment ain’t cheap at around 950 points, but it answers all your long range fire power needs. With raven as a tradition the detachment has excellent mobility, and of course that nasty stratagem. I’d highly recommend try it out for yourself.

+1. exactly the same here.

Mandragola wrote:
I haven't used either, but can't seem much point in combining them. The Helverins want to stay at range but the Preceptor wants to go in close. Buying a 419 point model so that a 174 point one can reroll to hit sounds far from ideal!

A preceptor might be an ok choice if you're using warglaives. Up close it's a good knight, and those rerolls of 1s will help somewhat. You could give it landstrider to try and boost them into turn one charges - which could actually be pretty doable with house Terryn even without using full tilt.

I guess my thought process is the first turn or two they can make use of the rerolls and grab midfield objectives while the preceptor positions itself to move on a target its more suited to. I have been running a crusader and gaurd battery who hold my back field objectives.

I don't know if helverins are clearly superior to my icarus onager. They're filling the exactly same role, being the helverins a lil bit faster and expensive.

I’d rather have Onagers to be honest.

Zorninsson wrote:
I don't know if helverins are clearly superior to my icarus onager. They're filling the exactly same role, being the helverins a lil bit faster and expensive.

Not that exactly. Besides the anti-air task, Helverins also murder 3-wound units.

actually helverins are true nemesis of custodes, light veichles (dark eldar), any multi wound model (obliterators for example) 1 shoot 1 failed save 1 model removed, they fit great in meta, dealing 3 wounds are really a lot.

I think the 60'' range + 14'' movement is their biggest strength, they can easily out-range weapons that counter them while hitting their own favorite targets in any situation.

On paper I think they are the bane of dark eldar units, -1AP and 3D with the option to ignore to-hit penalties means they cut through DE vehicles like butter while staying out of range from Ravagers

yes and they wreck havocs on multi wounds models, like custodes, 2 failed saves and you might lost a shield captain or your 3 wounds troops.