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Interesting choice. 35 is pretty steep for a lascannon, but it certainly shrugs off your opponent's long-range antitank guns. 125 gets you a lot more lascannon resistance than a pair of Oblits, for 25 less points. It's not a lot of gun for the cost, but it's taking an Elite slot rather than a heavy. Hrm.

You can always make up the difference with two Melta Guns and a Flamer. Of course, you can have a similarly configured Havoc unit for 110pts, but you don't get the Infiltrate, which is useful if you can put them up one flank of the board to hit side armour as the enemy attempts to advance, or simply put them forward as a spotter for Lesser Daemons.

You could field a five Havoc "Las-Plas" unit for 125pts.

Continuing the digression…

I experimented with Chosen a good bit when the codex first came out, in part to find a replacement for my old las/plas squads. Overall I was never able to find a combination I was happy with. I always felt I wasn’t getting enough killy for the cost. I started just with small fire support units, tried making them a bit bigger/building some assaulty capability (and of course an Icon for summoning), and again found that most of the time they were too isolated early, and got smacked or avoided. The most successful Chosen configuration I ever found was a small squad with max special weapons Outflanking in a Rhino. A mix of meltas and flamers was pretty nice for anti-tank or anti-infantry work, particularly the combination of the flamers with a timely Lash. The main problem with this unit, though, is that it tends to give up two KPs while scoring (at best) one, in Annihilation.

These recent discussions have been tempting me to try them out again, though. Maybe a squad with 2x melta, 2x plasmagun, with the idea of just doing drive-by shooting until and unless they’re forced to get out.

Nurglitch wrote:You can always make up the difference with two Melta Guns and a Flamer. Of course, you can have a similarly configured Havoc unit for 110pts, but you don't get the Infiltrate, which is useful if you can put them up one flank of the board to hit side armour as the enemy attempts to advance, or simply put them forward as a spotter for Lesser Daemons.

You could field a five Havoc "Las-Plas" unit for 125pts.

But you're missing the point that everyone else is making: Chaos needs HS for points-efficient long-range firepower. Your mixed havocs simply don't do that. I don't even like obliterators that much and I'd rather have two of them than that havoc squad.

Even the 5 man chosen with a lascannon unit is only really attractive because MSU is an inherently stronger list building mechanic, and it lets you get a lascannon into the list without having to sacrifice a HS slot or taking a full 10 man unit of chaos marines to babysit one heavy weapon. I think I'd consider a TL-lascannon dread over a lascannon chosen squad myself.

willydstyle:

Speaking of missing points, you missed mine about the difference between the Chosen squad and the two-man Obliterator Cult. The difference is two Melta Guns and a Flamer.

I've found, like Mannahnin is that one or two big units of Chosen would get destroyed early. But I also found that two or three, and Havocs behind, could support each other. That's why I'm leaning towards taking Heavy Weapons in Chaos Space Marine squads these days, because in combination with Havoc squads I can shoot up whatever tries to engage the Chosen.

Taking a Chosen squad so you can have a Lascannon is pretty inefficient though, and not just because they cost more individually, and buy Lascannons at full price.

Taking two Chosen squads so you can field four special weapons and a Heavy Weapon and an Icon is pretty good though. I've moved back to having them equipped with Plasma Guns because my Lascannons are in my Chaos Space Marine squads, and they go nicely with an Autocannon. They're about attacking vehicles (AV10-12) rather than tanks (AV13-14). As you say Chaos needs points efficient long-range firepower and Chaos Space Marines and Havocs provide it best.

It's 190ish points for a plasma gun, lascannon, and icon of glory in a csm squad. That is not particularly effective, nor points efficient. While I can appreciate it as a tactical squad that is harder to neutralize in CC, I still don't think it's very good.

1) Lascannon Chosen aren't a bad at all. Remember you also have Infiltrate and LD10 built in so you should get a good LOS setup. A way to cheapen them up is to take an Autocannon or Missile Launcher instead, it saves you enough points to buy a PG. I wonder about a AC/MG combo. 120 points and you have the option of engaging fast moving vehicles at range or killing Land Raiders up close.

2) I've heard some people talk about using a TL LC Predator with no sponsons. Its cheapish @ 105 points for a mobile TL Lascannon but it almost seems like a waste of a slot, especially in higher point games because you could easily get 2-4 Heavy weapons in that same slot depending on what else you take.

willydstyle:

Could you please elaborate on why its not particularly effective nor points efficient (also, consider the special weapon as a Melta Gun).

Oblits?

To be honest they arren't that great. I would only use 2 of the 7 weapons they have.

Termies?

Great, but I think you can have more killy assault units, like Berzerkers. These are very survivable though.

Nurglitch wrote:willydstyle:

Could you please elaborate on why its not particularly effective nor points efficient (also, consider the special weapon as a Melta Gun).

If the special weapon is a melta gun it's even worse, because the likely hood of using both a lascannon and a melta gun in the same turn are quite low. You pay close to 200 points for a single lascannon shot, albeit with a lot of wounds behind it.

The thing that's really gotten to me about Terminators lately is their inability to engage in Sweeping Advance. So they're great against stuff that they couldn't Sweep anyways (Fearless units, Walkers, vehicles), but less so against non-Fearless unit. Space Marines can actually just walk away from them, with no locking unit in place.

The 35pt lascannon in the chosen squad is pricey. For a better deal you could take a 20pt missile launcher instead. The lascannon is really only head and shoulders better than the ML vs. T-Fexes and Oblits. The lascannon is a better buy in a CSM troop squad (price wise) though many people envision their CSM having another role on the battlefield.

willydstyle wrote:

Nurglitch wrote:willydstyle:

Could you please elaborate on why its not particularly effective nor points efficient (also, consider the special weapon as a Melta Gun).

If the special weapon is a melta gun it's even worse, because the likely hood of using both a lascannon and a melta gun in the same turn are quite low. You pay close to 200 points for a single lascannon shot, albeit with a lot of wounds behind it.

I think, moreso, that you pay 20pts for a Lascannon shot, rather than, say, 35pts. What you get is flexibility. Since the flexibility is unit oriented, because as you say the likelihood of combining the Lascannon and Melta Gun shots in a single turn, redudancy has to be army-oriented. You need to take several Chaos Marine squads. Considering its only ten points more than a second Melta Gun on the same Chaos Space Marine and allows the squad to start the game addressing enemy vehicles and even tanks, that ten point premium is a bargain. The squad is also quite flexible when it comes to anti-infantry, because it still have eight Bolters.

Flexibility is great, but CSM, despite being spiky marines, don't do it as well as pure SM armies. The options on their similar units just aren't there, or, when present, they cost too much (Dreadnought and Predators, respectively). Worse still, the best generalist units don't exist at all (MM/HF Land Speeders). If you tailor your CSM list for flexibility you just end up with a bad SM list.

Danny Internets +1. Chaos can't afford to make weird mixed-bag units because they don't tend to have enough points or FOC slots to make them effective.

Danny Internets wrote:Flexibility is great, but CSM, despite being spiky marines, don't do it as well as pure SM armies. The options on their similar units just aren't there, or, when present, they cost too much (Dreadnought and Predators, respectively). Worse still, the best generalist units don't exist at all (MM/HF Land Speeders). If you tailor your CSM list for flexibility you just end up with a bad SM list.

Dreadnoughts get 3A base. They dont have venerable or assault cannons, but they still do what they need to do.

Predators are only 10 points more, and in my opinion, far superior to the SM predator (due to the nature of the rest of the army).

You cant compare the units directly because the 2 armies play completely differently.

Alternately, you can compare units directly so long as you understand their relative contexts and adjust accordingly.

The way I see it every army in Warhammer 40k can be describe according to the distribution of three principles:

Flexibility (aka "duality" in some circles...)
Redundancy (aka "spam")
Synergy

An army needs to maximize its abilities in all three areas, or according to all three principles. But you face the choice of maximizing across the army, or within units. When you're maximizing flexibility across the army, you can take a range of specialized units or you can take a range of generalized units. The generalized units have greater redundancy because you can lose any unit until the last one, while the specialized units have greater synergy, thanks to the 40k limits on target selection and the other of events (two Lascannons in one unit destroy a vehicle, then another unit charges, rather than two units with lascannons destroying one unit and not being able to charge the passengers).

Consider that a Lascannon in a Chaos Space Marine squad is only 10pts more than a Melta Gun, and 15pts less than a Lascannon found on a Chosen or Havoc squad, and 10pts less than one found on a Predator. Land Raiders and Obliterators have complex arrangements so I'll leave them out for the moment.

Suppose you have four Chaos Space Marine squads and one Havoc squad. If you have four Lascannons and eight Melta Guns to distribute, then you can have two Melta Guns in each Chaos Space Marine squad and four Lascannons in the Havoc squad. This gives you the ability to engage up to one unit on Turn 1, and five units on Turn 2, at the premium of 220pts.

Otherwise you can have one Melta Gun and one Lascannon in each Chaos Space Marine squad and four Melta Guns in the Havoc squad. That gives you the ability to engage up to four units on Turn 1 and up to five units on Turn 2, for a premium of 160pts. More coverage, more mobility, less cost. Some might construe that as additional efficiency.

I played an army built around pre-heresy so I dropped all of the units and weapons that were not around during that time including Oblits.

So I ran an army without Oblits several times and I just could not make it work. I ran 2 units of chosen with lascannons, Havocs with missile launchers, and other Havoc units, and I had limited success. Havocs were hurt by Dawn of War deployments, and their static shooting nature, but they did have durability, and I did like the fact that they were also a CSM squads and they also had good combat utility. The chosen were ok because they had infiltrate, but they were costly.

But what I really needed were lascannons. I had a total of 4 them in my CSM squads and the Chosen, but there are so many things out there that can only be killed by lascannons, that I felt that they are necessary to a winning Chaos army. Sure, 2 out of 3 games I can win and I did not need them, but on the third I was outmatched by something where I was saying to myself I could win if I had oblits. Think of everything with 2+ save, 14 armor, and toughness 8+ that you need to kill.

Note: I would also point out that I run a shooting CSM army.

I still want to point out that predators can do cost-efficient lascannons pretty well.

willydstyle wrote:I still want to point out that predators can do cost-efficient lascannons pretty well.

There are also other things you can take as well like Land Raiders, and Noise Marines, etc.

But they are just substitutes, and will not do as good a job as Oblits.

For example: After you kill the things that you need lascannons to kill then what do you do with the Pred? What if you are playing against and Ork, IG or Tyranid horde? Then your preds are worthless.

I can't understate the utility of the Oblits.
Deep strikers (termies or others) come down and they are all bunched up? Hit them with a plasma cannon.
Trygon pop up right next to your army? Rapid fire some TL Plasma Guns.
Land Raider driving forward to drop it's payload? Melta guns.
Horde army getting to close? Hit them with Flamers.
Etc.

You see my point. In a take-all-comers tournament you can't beat oblits.

I think willydstyle's point about Predators was that they were a cost-efficient way of bringing Lascannons to the field. Compared to three Obliterators, they bring three Lascannons to the field and free up 60pts for other stuff while have one Lascannon be more reliable, and being far more resistant to S7- weapons; two shots with a Plasma Gun can kill an Obliterator much more easily than it will kill a Predator.

I think the efficacy of Obliterator Weaponry has been beaten to death. That's not at issue, except in the specific instance where other units have weapons they don't have, or can front-load more of one particular type of firepower. The draw-back to Obliterators is their cost and stamina: they cost a bundle, and die relatively easily.

So yes, I do believe you've overstated the utility of Obliterators because you haven't given sufficient account of their weaknesses.

If you're playing an army that does not require anti-tank weapons for killing, then you use the preds as AV13 cover for your rhinos and run them around tank shocking recklessly.

Sorry, but I cant think of anytime where my predator hasnt had a target. If Ive blown up all the enemy vehicles (at which point Ive likely already won anyways), I shoot things like terminators or nobs, or anything else I can Instant kill. Predators still get 4 high S shots at 48". Obliterators are going to do what? Charge towards 30 orks and use their versatility?

I have to chuckle at Blackmoor's post. The problem with all that versatility is that the rest of the army does most of those things, and does it better. I used to use oblits and NEVER fired the flamer once. Even the melta guns rarely got used, because I already have eight of them spread across the table. Unless the Landraider can fly, there is no way its getting through 8 melta guns. Not necessary.

Plasma cannons are nice, but you dont need 6 of them. I tried them on two dreads as a joke, and found that they did the job well. Now my 2 dreadnoughts are in my main list, mainly running forward into CC, but blasting anything that happens to bunch up. That's all I need for PCs.

No, what I need from Heavy Support is the glaring weakness that the rest of the book holds - long range fire. Point for point, Predators (and Havocs) do it better. Plus both of them survive far better than oblits.

Night Lords wrote:Obliterators are going to do what? Charge towards 30 orks and use their versatility?

You, sir, win the thread.

Well I have tank shocked and triple TLflamered bunched up orks...it worked out well.

Few and far between, but I guess the usage is more important than list building.

minigun762 wrote:I'm sure people will have strong feelings one way or another but I'm going to come right out and say
"No, I don't think so".

I think the key to success with Chaos Marines lies in the troops. Termicide and Oblits are good support units but they're just that, support.

Both are good units, but I don't play with either of them at 1750. Here is my list http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/272205.page

I have no problems with anti tank. My only problem is lists with 5 or more MC.

I could dump the defiler for a pair of oblits, but they would probably be less survivable. It's easy for me in most games to give my defiler a cover save and keep it out of range of most of the enemy's weapons. That and they are usually too preoccupied with my monstrous creatures.

Night Lords wrote:Obliterators are going to do what? Charge towards 30 orks and use their versatility?

No, that's what the rest of your list is for.

They are never better than a specialized unit. You won't get to use all of their abilities in a single game. They are a supplimentary unit, to help your dedicated anti-whatever units if your opponent spams to overload a single category (horde or armor spam).

Here is another reason why Oblits are better than Preds: Tyranid shooting can take out a pred without too much problem. Tyranid shooting has a problem killing Oblits. (I will not get into how they lose most of their firepower when they move, they have weak side and rear armor, and they can be stunned. and it is much harder to given them a cover save than oblits).

willydstyle wrote:

Night Lords wrote:Obliterators are going to do what? Charge towards 30 orks and use their versatility?

You, sir, win the thread.

In my experience, the orks will charge toward you whether you want them to or not. I could go into details of how you can use flamers on horde armies, but this is not tactics. If you are not a good enough player to figure it out, I can't help you.

Nurglitch wrote: two shots with a Plasma Gun can kill an Obliterator much more easily than it will kill a Predator.

The draw-back to Obliterators is their cost and stamina: they cost a bundle, and die relatively easily.

So yes, I do believe you've overstated the utility of Obliterators because you haven't given sufficient account of their weaknesses.

Everyone keeps saying that they are weak and they can be killed so easily. It is nice to sit back and think that things like plasma guns can kill them, but you need to get them within 12” and to do that you have to go through the rest of my army. You can also say that Lascannons can kill them, but how many armies really have lascannons anymore?
You can say that they have no stamina, but can you prove it?

In point of fact almost every army seems to have lascannons or lascannon-like weapons.

I have 6 Lascannons in my 2,000 point Space Marine army, all on separate units, and consider that relatively insufficient. Imperial Guard armies frequently field 2-3 Vendettas, even in lower-points games, and may have more lascannons besides in heavy weapon squads or infantry blobs. Eldar often take bright lances. Dark Eldar are well-known for their obscene amounts of dark lances. Witch Hunters have the phenomenal Exorcist tank. Tau, of course, take railguns. Enemy Chaos Marines have their own Obliterators. The only armies that *don't* seem to have these weapons are Orks, Tyranids, and Necrons.

Further, with the advent of Tyranids, I think more and more people may start fielding these sorts of long-range weapons, which is a definite lose for Oblits.