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Those were the days when I would draw up my guitar-wielding Marines to headbang Guardsmen to death. Lists used to include Hellhounds then. Now that I actually play IG, they're gone. Why? Competition from the Vendetta is certainly a factor, but with double FOC I'm sure they can fit in somewhere. So variant by variant, why are Hellhounds not that good? I can guess that the Hellhound itself is pretty expensive, and the Bane Wolf has to expose itself to an enemy charge in order to use its chem cannon, which will certainly destroy it. But I've always been sort of attracted to the Devil Dog. Melta is king, it's fast and it can screw over all vehicles and infantry if needed, albeit not on a large scale. I only have one, and frankly, due to the engraved concept of redundancy, I've been too scared to use it on its own. I don't even know how the Melta Cannon works, being both a Melta and a Blast. I may have missed it in the FAQ, so how do you determine Melta range with a Blast weapon anyway? If the blast scatters to beyond 12", does it roll 2D6 for penetration?

If you use Hellhounds/Devil Dogs/Bane Wolves, what tactics do you like to use?

Hellhound and devil dog are awesome. I've never seen a banewolf successfully fire.

They do fill a middle ground of not as tough to kill, and not as dangerous as other threats. As long as you have enough of "greater threats", you'll get a lot of mileage out of both.

2 medusa (with camo), an exterminator, and you've got 3 serious threats that should worry you more than a hellhound or variant.

If they weren't so much money, I'd run a lot of them.

-Matt

Being an eldar/tau player, I absolutely hate hellhounds. Hellhounds will murder anything without power armor or better. Even against power armor, you wound most infantry on 2+, making them fairly good at sticking wound. They are fast, and decently armored.

They excel at finding infantary relying on cover, and then just cooking them. Even small squads are under threat if you can get the whole template under them. I have also lost wave serpents and devilfish to hellhounds. Using the torrent rule, they can get their fire into the rear arc(ignoring jink saves!) and get a pin.

I have only had a bane wolf survive long enough to shoot at me once...did nothing. I have never seen a devil dog played, but they got better with the new blast rules.

They're not. They are, however, competing with Vendettas (generally considered the most underpriced unit in 6e) for Fast Attack slots, so people don't use them much.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
They're not. They are, however, competing with Vendettas (generally considered the most underpriced unit in 6e) for Fast Attack slots, so people don't use them much.

I'd also add in most underpriced in 5th as well. At least for the majority of 5th, now with the boon to "flyers" and AP2 weaponry, not really a contest. Strictly Codex speaking of course.

So, the biggest reason you don't see hellhounds anymore is that the game started being about mech starting in 5th ed. Now, a vast majority of what you're going to see facing off against you for the first couple of turns of your average games are going to be vehicles, or infantry in transports. This means that anti-infantry weapons that can't hurt transports have the dangerous chance to just be twiddling their thumbs until they have a viable target.

Secondly, long-range shooting has gotten systematically better over time. This means that your hellhounds are just less likely to survive then they were all those years ago. If you DO have targets that a hellhound can hurt, it just means that your hellhound is going to be blown up right away as a top-priority target.

Thirdly, the hellhound now has serious competitors. Stormtroopers have good Ap small arms and the ability to reroll scatter die when placing flamers next to something with deepstrike (and deepstriking is much less dangerous than it used to be in general). We now have an artillery piece that is both Ap3 and ignores cover. For a 30-point upgrade, you can take a hellhound and give it AV14, twice the effective range, and the ability to take great hull weapons (plus free smoke and searchlights) on an eradicator.

In the end, hellhounds aren't that great because either they're not going to be a threat, and are going to be worthless, or they're going to be a threat, and won't have the durability to survive long enough to be terribly useful.

This same general principle is true for the variants as well. The devil dog is a lot of points to pay for basically a single long-ranged meltagun on a crummy chassis, especially when you could be taking melta stormies or medusas or lascannon sentinels or something. The banewolf is just outright garbage. A weapon that is either literally useless, or that is very scary, which is really, really bad, given that it comes with a 0" ranged weapon without the torrent rule.

I really do want to like hellhounds, but they're just so badly outclassed by other stuff in the codex, and aren't that adapted to a contemporary environment.

I suspect they suffer most not because they are bad, but because in all-comer builds the Vendetta is just better at the same cost.

But vendettas and hellhounds don't' do remotely the same thing.

Such an argument would certainly work against devil dogs, though.

Recently bought a pair of Bane Wolves and a Hellhound on ebay for 50 bucks. I will be using them in an apocalypse game starting next friday and will be sure to post some thoughts on how they handle.

Looking at the stats I see a lot of potential in them, so long as taken in groups and not solo. Since being immobilized in a squadron is no longer an auto-wreck, this is no longer nearly as dangerous as it used to be.

 Ailaros wrote:
But vendettas and hellhounds don't' do remotely the same thing.

Such an argument would certainly work against devil dogs, though.

I think the argument is that the things that Vendettas are good against are more common in the current metagame than the things that hellhounds are good against.

Its the same reason everything else in our fast attack slot is "terrible", it's not a vendetta. Most take all comers list will take the vendetta and then take something else to take out entrenched infantry with the points they saved (or even stick a fireball unit in the vendetta itself)

That said, I would only use hellhounds in an armored fist/leafblower style lists. Both spam a ton of AV12, so the hellhounds will have saturation with your other units to keep it around or at least draw fire from others. 3 of them moving up with chimera support and artillery in the back providing heavy support could make for a mean list.

Other than that though, they're too high profile of a target to survive. Vendettas have jink and their hard to hit rule. Hellhounds have to pop smoke and hope they live.

Hellhounds *are* good.

I often take them in squadrons of 2. They will either make their points back or scare a non power armour opponent so much that they focus on them and ignore your army's other threats.

As ailaros points out, you'll be sitting around waiting for a target against some builds. To this end I always give hellhounds a hull multimelta. Not only does this offer you some protection against weapon destroyed results, it means that at the start of the game, your hellhounds can focus on tank hunting if there are no tempting infantry squads for the turret weapon.

They aren't as fragile as you think, either. Hellhounds have side armour of 12, so don't be shy of using their fast movement to get into side arcs of enemy vehicles, even if it means exposing your own sides to things like autocannons, plus if they're a squadron, that's 6 hullpoints to deal with.

I've tried all three variants (magnetised the turret weapons) and I've found that bane wolf is too situational to be much use in a TAC list. (plus without the torrent rule, it needs to get right up in the face of its intended target which generally makes it a suicide unit), and the Devil Dog isn't filling a gap I need in the melta vet list I run.

145 points for a 12/12/10 fast vehicle with a S6 Ap4 Torrent flamer and a hull multi melta seems like a bargain to me.

I've used a banewolf for a while (got it real cheap on Ebay,) and while it often fails to accomplish much, it's always a good distraction unit, and if it fails to distract the enemy, it torches them. Or, rather, turns them into bubbling goo or something.

The Hellhound is certainly better, and is a very valid unit option, especially if your meta is not Marine-dominated, but my Bane Wolf has made itself useful from time to time, either as a shot absorber for vets in Chimeras, or clearing out entrenched infantry, or, from time to time, peeling that last stubborn wound off of a MC.

Given the choice were I building one today, I'd go hellhound, it's more versatile, and its torrent special rule gives it better flexibility in use, but nor do I resent the bane wolf and its ability to mulch large numbers of marines in the right situation.

Hellhounds are weak because they have a very narrow role. They're awesome at removing 4+ or worse infantry from cover, but marginal at best outside of that role (a hull MM helps them avoid being entirely worthless, but 145 points for a single BS 3 MM shot is terrible). You can make good use of them if you know you're going to face that situation a lot, but an all-comers list needs to accept that the most common enemy has a 3+ save and laughs at Hellhounds.

Devil Dogs are weak because they're an anti-tank unit competing with Vendettas. They're not bad in isolation, but you want to take a Vendetta instead.

Bane Wolves are garbage because the main gun doesn't have the torrent rule. You have to get to suicidally close range to even attempt to fire, and the limited range of options for placing the template makes it hard to get many hits. Often a Hellhound will inflict more wounds to even MEQs just because of the superior number of hits it inflicts.

I used both devil dogs and hellhounds as firepower tanks in 5th edition. I would drive them behind a chimera wall. Because they're fast vehicles, they can zoom around to the front when the target is in range and toast something.

Hellhounds were great at taking out units of scarabs or dark eldar beast packs. Every wound kills 2 entire bases with no cover saves.

Devil dogs were great at opening heavy transports, especially land raiders, so that the guys in the chimeras could light up the passengers.

But now in 6th edition, they've been displaced by vendettas.

It's not that a vendetta does the same thing. It's that you can get the same effect as a hellhound with free heavy flamers on your chimeras, and you can get the same effect as a hellhound with meltaguns on your troops (or multimelta allies).

But you can't get what a vendetta does in any other slot.

The Vendetta is so effective and efficient at hunting armour that it allows you to free up slots elsewhere in your FOC that would otherwise go to that role.

As in my case having Vendettas frees up my artillery to focus on pure troop crushing, coutesy of some colossus.

It's hard for a flame tank to compete with that. (see post above) And even then Valkeries with MRPs may do it better still.

If I had the FOC slot available I'd take the Hellhound for sure. Firing around cover at range is delightful. A bit like fast short range no scatter artillery.

Look at it like this: The Hellhound and its variants are solid tanks. The Vendetta is the very best unit in the game.

They both cost the same amount of points.

If it makes you feel better, almost every unit in the entire game, let alone codex, is overshadowed by the Vendetta.

A friend of mine uses hellhounds from time to time.... these guys annihalate my Boyz...... And against my Necrons they do quite some dmg as well... remember... heavy flamer!

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the points cost. 130 points seems like far too much for what you get, or maybe I've just been spoiled by the 130 point Vendetta.

I like to take one unit of 2 hellhounds with hull HB. It breaks up the monotony of always taking 3 vendettas. It's a great weapon platform and an awesome weapon, like others have said it just sits in the shadow of an auto include flier.

Whats not to like, it's fast, AV 12,12,10 and has a s6 pa4 torrent turret template (say that 3 times fast)

I use to always run Bane Wolves in 5th I also ran Plasma/Melta Vets as troops and a Plasma Command Squad, Russ's and a single Manticore. The Bane Wolves did fine because most of the Heavy Hitters in the list could only shoot 12" so everything work well at a very short range.

In 6th I'm finding I need to keep more distance as my Chimeras can't take a hit like they use to. I'm finding my Melta Vets to be less useful as well having such short range so I have decked out all my Vets with Plasma Guns. It leaves me wih a big hole in my list when dealing AV14 & even AV13 the mass amounts of Plasma can take out most other things.

So that then takes me to my Heavy Support and Fast Attack Sections of the Codex. I want things that have Range and can Break AV14 turn 1 The Vendetta is in Reserve so can't do anything the Devil Dog with Hull Multi-Melta is on the table however so not only adds some Hull Saturation but also gives some good Anti-Armour turn 1. The drawback is that if any tanks are 25" or further away I will be out of Melta Range so I then have to glance AV14 on 6. So that kinda sucks.

What I have been doing is Hammering them with Manticores and Glancing them Death and then Finishing off what ever failed to die with Vendettas Turn 2. I always take Heavy Bolter Sponsons in case all the Armour is dead I have been finding that 2x TL-Lascannon shots and 6x Heavy Bolter shots does well against Infanrty and the Hight that the Vendetta has can shoot over Agies Lines as well

I have also been considering taking a squad of Hellhounds. Why do you ask. Because I'm getting sick of thing going to ground behind Agies lines for a 2++ cover save and things with Jink are starting to annoy me as well. I figure with the Hell Hound I can force MEQ to roll there 3+ saves behind the Agies instead of the 2++ & any thing with less than 3+ saves will die. Still haven't run The Hell Hounds be I would be keen to give them a try. I could Run a Collossus but I want more tanks Mid Field to work with my Chimeras.

I feel there is a place in a list to run both Hell Hounds and Vendettas there are three Slots in Fast Attack and no-one ever said that they all had to be filled with the same unit.

Hellhounds are not bad at all. On their own their pretty good. Being fast and having AV12 on the sides in quite nice.

Its just that vendettas are better.

Hellhound/ bane wolf are not bad. In my times of using them, they get blwn up before they do much. I might get a shot off with the hellhound, but then those orks come in and kill it. Bane wolf, the anti power armor variant, it gets shot up with las cannons before anything else.

Points to consider.

1. It is in the same options as balks/vendettas, scout sentinels.

2. It s a good distraction unit, but IG are not about distractions, just pouring shots down range.

What is this torrent rule I keep hearing so much about?

watchamacarcess wrote:
What is this torrent rule I keep hearing so much about?

Torrent allows a gun to place its flamer template 12'' away as long as the short end is closer to the barrel of the weapon than the wide end. The Tyrannofex's Acid Spray, Dreadknight Heavy Incinerator, Heldrake's Baleflamer, and the Hellhound are all examples of units with Torrent (though of those, only the Heldrake has the actual Torrent special rule, everything else has a wordier version that gives the same effect).