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I'm running a mainly infantry based army - and I've been considering the addition of some vehicles to take on a heavy-hitting role.

I was looking at the Devil Dog and the Bane Wolf in the codex and they seem to be good choices for different things. This is how I understand them to be:
Devil Dog - Fast and really good versus vehicles
Bane Wolf - Fast and really good versus infantry/monstrous creatures

So if I was to add both a Devil Dog and a Bane Wolf... would that be a smart addition for a mainly infantry gunline, in order to add mobile Anti-Armour and Anti-Infantry?
What are people's opinions on the two variants?

I haven't tried the Devil Dog, but I've used the Bane Wolf a couple of times. It's not really something I'd take to deal with monstrous creatures, honestly - getting close enough to hit it with the template risks the beastie turning around and pulping the tank, and it's only going to deal one wound anyway. It's quite good at killing things in power armor, though, so if your list has a dearth of AP3, you might want to look into it. The Hellhound's a little better if you're up against things with lighter armor, though.

Never used a Banewolf, can't comment on it.

The Devildog however is very nice for killing vehicles. It's a small blast melta canon. The changes to sixth ed about blasts/center hole/weapon strength gave it a bit of a buff over 5th, making it even more attractive. Also really good for clumped up termies if your opponent is makes the mistake.

Edited to correct wrong wording.

It's a Chimera chassis and will probably die to anything a Space Marine player will point at it. I personally don't field Chimera chassis, it's just too weak. In an IG army, all I field are Leman Russes :3

I love using the Devil Dog if you're lacking anti tank fire power.Out of the trio though, Bane Wolf is my personal favourite. You can easily outflank, and it'll rip through any infantry, and almost any creature. I mean wounding on 2's, AP 3 against a SM is just painful.

The Banewolf is garbage. AP 3 looks good until you realize the template has zero range. So the Hellhound will shoot 1-2 times before the Banewolf gets in range, and then the Hellhound will hit more models because of the much greater flexibility in placing the template. So even against MEQs the Hellhound does a lot more damage, and obviously massacres lighter infantry in ways the Banewolf can only dream of.

If I remember correctly the Bane Wolf is a fast tank? that template can sneak up on you with a slow army like IG.

Sneak up? I wouldn't put too much money on that especially against IG. For one thing, they have a lot of tools to blow up AV12 chassis, for the second thing why are you bothering with an AP3 template model when the AP4 basic hellhound with torrent is SO much better against IG? The highest armor save you'll see in IG is a 4+. The only real reason you take a bane wolf is to combat MEQ, and at that range, your banewolf is as good as dead, if it even gets that far...

The banewolf is exceedingly awful. You're not going to be able to get a good shot off until turn 3, and that's if your opponent does nothing whatsoever to stop it, like killing it, or displacing their troops. Without torrent, you're not even getting good hits when you get good hits. Practically speaking, everything the banewolf does, the regular hellhound does much better.

The devil dog, of course, is a different beast. It basically comes with a pair of lascannons that lose 12" of potential threat range, but magically becomes four lascannons worth of effectiveness when you start the turn within 24" of something. That's not actually that bad of a deal, even comparing to the vendetta, which is more expensive, and doesn't start the game on the board. You also get a small blast which, while not great, can punish your opponents for putting things too close to each other. Not the best unit in the world, but not the worst either.

Unlike the banewolf, which has a place between penal legionnaires and techpriests in my book.

 ductvader wrote:
If I remember correctly the Bane Wolf is a fast tank? that template can sneak up on you with a slow army like IG.

They're all fast tanks. And even if you can "sneak up" with one that doesn't fix the main problem with the Banewolf, that the very similar Hellhound is better even against the Banewolf's main target.

Mmm. Also, another question... the BaneWolf and Hellhound have the internal space used up for their weapon tanks (chem and fuel).... but the Devil Dog doesn't need a tank, so does it still have carrying capability?

Otto Weston wrote:
Mmm. Also, another question... the BaneWolf and Hellhound have the internal space used up for their weapon tanks (chem and fuel).... but the Devil Dog doesn't need a tank, so does it still have carrying capability?

Does the codex say it has transport capacity?

Well no, but it doesn't say it doesn't.

It says specifically that the Hellhound doesn't because the internal space is used for promethium tanks. I assumed that the Banewolf's internal space was taken up by chemical tanks.

RE: Devil Dog.. doesn't say either way. I was just thinking that because the internal space isn't needed for tanks, that it could carry people?

Otto Weston wrote:
Well no, but it doesn't say it doesn't.

Then why would you think that it has transport capacity? Do you wonder if the Leman Russ has transport capacity just because it doesn't explicitly say "this is not a transport"?

The reason why I would think it has transport capacity, is because it's based off of the Chimera hull, a transport hull.

The Hellhound variant specifically said it lost the transport ability, it didn't say that about the Devil Dog.

Hence my question.

Only the rules matter, not the physical model, or the fluff.

That's what I'm trying to get clarification on. So it take it from Peregrine's response that the answer is a no?

Otto Weston wrote:
That's what I'm trying to get clarification on. So it take it from Peregrine's response that the answer is a no?

The answer is you look at the rules. If it says "Transport capacity: X models" it has X models worth of transport capacity. If it does not it is not a transport. What the fluff is or what the model looks like is irrelevant.

Aight, thank you.

If you happen to have creed in your force then the banewolf gets far more nasty. Either scouting it up or outflanking it will kill something when it arrives.

I use devildogs in smaller point value games as my AT since its better than just about anything else in ~500 point games. Also take a hellhound over a Banewolf in my DKoK tourney lists. AP4 is good enough vs the xenos that you see all over tourneys. Also the torrent means you cannot be within the 6" melta range if you position right or get even a single kill. Or you can sit behind your ADL and poke advancing units while retaining your cover. Finally, you dont know how many times my hellhound has been immobilized. I was strongly thinking about taking a priest militant simply for the repair. Banewolf just becomes useless whereas the hellhound can still reach pretty far.