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Hi all. I am planning on buying some War Dogs, preferably the close combat ones, as allies for my Chaos Space Marines. Their weapons would be magnetised so I could also swap them for lightning locks and run them as Moirax war dogs (take that Forge World). Eventually I would like to have a Knight Rampager too, just because it's the best-named unit in all of 40K. I'm not interested in the Knight that buffs War Dogs as its primary weapon (the laser cannon) seems almost laughably useless.

I am not bothered about being super-competitive, I just want to have some exciting games and maybe catch my opponents out with my choices. I also don't care about losing CP - as far as I'm concerned, 40K is about the models and the narrative, not some invisible rule book allowing magic to happen (e.g. "my gun can suddenly fire twice as fast because the rulebook says it can").

Has anyone run just War Dogs as a support unit? How did they do? Are they fun or do they die like dogs?

I have two of them with the autocannons, and I run them with my knight tyrant, and they've been pretty good for me. I have two of them with the close combat weapons I haven't put together yet, but they seem fine to me. I'll be building a knight rampager too because they are cool, so I don't think it'd be bad by any stretch.

Personally, I think that the Autocannons are superior, in that they can still be used in melee. The Thermal spear is blast, so it can't be used in melee, and you get better range with the autocannons too.
Looking down the scope, Autocannons are 3 damage, so optimal for one shotting terminators when they get their third wound. Is that worth an additional 20 points? Only you can make that call.
I used to go full ranged options, but with the shooting in melee changes, I have been opting to run meltaguns over stubbers for that extra melee punch.

Personally, I consider Lucaris to be the winner, but household choice is entirely up to you. Maybe the fact that my melee Despoiler becomes an auto-hitter in combat is the reason, but the fact that melee improves for the war dogs too, and the Iconoclast buffs are factored in, makes it overwhelming to my thinking.

I have been using the Lucaris warlord trait, but considering that the Slaanesh relic does the same thing and I generally don't have a clue which to pick, may open up other options. But what you take is up to you.

Edit TLDR; Autocannons all the way. If you do have an Armiger kit, put both thermal spears on one chassis to 'counts as' your ninth, and convert the tenth to a demon prince or something.

Has anyone run just War Dogs as a support unit? How did they do? Are they fun or do they die like dogs?

What else is in the army? I have a pair of CC War Dogs myself. I run them as support for my Iron Warriors. That army is filled to the brim with fast moving demon engines that want to be in your face, and the Armigers tend to do ok because of threat saturation.

That said I also have a Creations of Bile army that I run them with. That army also has a lot of fast moving cc units, but they're mostly marines. In that army the War Dogs are there because I like them, but they rarely see the end of turn 2 because they're clearly the bigger threat. I'd agree that right now the Autocannon version is probably better. It's an important distinction since it's not a dual kit so you'll need to be sure of your decision up front.

Basically though, like I said - if you have a lot of threat saturation, even the CC versions can be really good, but they will die easier than you might think so you have to use them well.

Thanks everyone. I'm going to start with two Warglaive-armed War Dogs and add a Rampager later on. I'll magnetise all weapons and buy autocannons and lightning locks later on. Seen some very cool, Epic Warhound style helmets (the beautiful classic ones, not the boxy modern ones) which will fit the mini-knights, and a Nurgle head to fit the Rampager.

Get a couple Moirax. Give them grav, +6", and reroll a single hit.

Laugh when you one shot any marine unit that isn't a tank.

If you're gonna run CC wardogs, might as well look into a Desecrator. The rerolls are fantastic, especially if you're gonna run Lucaris.