Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

madtankbloke wrote:
The best platform for grav guns is anything thats relentless like bikes, to make the most of the salvo rule. anything without relentless should take a different weapon like flamers, plasma and melta.

Yep.

Grav guns are great targets who have a save of 4+ or better. If your shooting at guard or worse, then they are not the best tools. This is why they work so well on bikes, as bikes have the TL bolters to use on those targets.

Grav amps change that, as even against 5+ saves, they are still wounding 55% of the time. Be wary of cents with hurricane bolters and grav cannons. They can pack a punch.

Against armor, grav rifles are about equal to PG at AV12. I broke out my excel program hacked on the math. (PGs edge out slightly due to the chance to explode). Against AV10 and 11, PGs are better. Against AV 13 and 14, grav is better. Melta is still better vs AV 11 and greater. The math showing this deserves its own post, as there is a lot to it. Or you can figure it out yourself

People have mentioned grav weapons' short range as a problem, but you also have to consider the range issues in light of what they're shooting at. Both wraithknights and riptides out range grav guns, and they have guns that are really good at killing marines. It seems like in most tau and eldar players will wipe anything carrying a grav gun off the board before they even get a chance to shoot.

You will always be outranged by riptides.

Redbeard wrote:And I think grav weapons have too many blind spots. Grav weapons are pointedly bad against Fateweaver. They're bad against Great Unclean Ones and Lords of Change, and Keepers of Secrets...

So, by "too many blind spots" you mean "isn't good against several of the HQ choices from one codex?" That sounds like "a" blind spot, not "too many".

Meanwhile, when you're looking at a squad of 3 centurions putting out 15 "twin linked" Ap2 S~7-8 shots against most MCs and vehicles per turn, that takes exactly what you want plasma against, and just does it better. Finding a few things plasma can do better doesn't change that grav guns still do most things better.

herpguy wrote:You will always be outranged by riptides.

Yes, but plasma guns aren't seriously better against riptides than grav guns here. Plus, like plasma weapons, grav guns are a defensive weapon. Short ranged, salvo, and really good in their range. They're designed much more to swat away crisis suits and terminators than to annihilate wrathknights from your side of the table.

Thankfully. Or else space marines would become a grav gun gunline...

one of the problem i see with Grav Guns, is "knock yourself out for a turn" . Meaning, 18" range on a bike, 24" range on cent.

Maybe not so much on centurions. But as for bikes, you will get 1 turn then anything that has a 12" move is going to assault you. Tyrannid swarm, spawn, deamons, necron scarabs could careless about grav guns. And any unit of those will most likely wipe out your bikes in one assault.

I like the Cents better if i had to pick one, i know they are heavy support. But its very easy to ally with your own book doing the dual chapter tactics and getting 4 heavy support. Also they have the ability to reroll, lets face it the thing that stops space marines from winning is going to be a helldrake which instant kills anything space marines can make a troop choice. Cent Devs with reroll to hit and reroll to get that 6 is superior to knock out a heldrake.

Frankly imperial fist chapter, lascannon load out might be better choice. Instant death t4 multi wounds, needs 2's to wound mostly anything. And they have tank hunter.

 Ailaros wrote:

Redbeard wrote:And I think grav weapons have too many blind spots. Grav weapons are pointedly bad against Fateweaver. They're bad against Great Unclean Ones and Lords of Change, and Keepers of Secrets...

So, by "too many blind spots" you mean "isn't good against several of the HQ choices from one codex?" That sounds like "a" blind spot, not "too many".

Meanwhile, when you're looking at a squad of 3 centurions putting out 15 "twin linked" Ap2 S~7-8 shots against most MCs and vehicles per turn, that takes exactly what you want plasma against, and just does it better. Finding a few things plasma can do better doesn't change that grav guns still do most things better.

herpguy wrote:You will always be outranged by riptides.

Yes, but plasma guns aren't seriously better against riptides than grav guns here. Plus, like plasma weapons, grav guns are a defensive weapon. Short ranged, salvo, and really good in their range. They're designed much more to swat away crisis suits and terminators than to annihilate wrathknights from your side of the table.

Thankfully. Or else space marines would become a grav gun gunline...

Not only twinlinked, but rerolls to wound too.

Which means that they always have at least a roughly one in three chance of wounding. Which actually isn't all that bad given the weight of fire Centurions pour out, especially since they ignore armor saves. The hurricane bolters also help against hordes.

With rerolls it means that anything with a 4+ or better pretty much instantly melts away like snow on a grill when exposed to Centurions, and as Labmouse said, even GEQs have a roughly one in two chance of dying per shot.

Which means that they're better than even against the majority of the units in the game, and with the rapid hull point stripping, they won't be too shabby at murdering vehicles either.

With SnP we get a 30' bubble of hellmurder.

Important question regarding this whole discussion; is there a reason why most people seem to be acting like Grav is an all-or-nothing choice? Most arguments seem to be suggesting that the whole army in question has Grav pretty much, but I realistically see competitive lists only having two squads with Grav (to create redundancy).

What I'm seeing here is a need for balanced lists, including grav, but not being limited to only grav. Which is a good thing. Last edition was melta and missile spam, now it's a happy blend of weapons. That's never a bad thing.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
What I'm seeing here is a need for balanced lists, including grav, but not being limited to only grav. Which is a good thing. Last edition was melta and missile spam, now it's a happy blend of weapons. That's never a bad thing.

Precisely what I'm thinking. All the TL Bolters on your Bikes aren't going to be enough to face a full on horde if you go all Grav, but likewise going no Grav might leave you wanting when you face those T6-8 monsters that your Plasma doesn't wound on 2's.

Well, but a plasma gun isn't much better than a regular grav gun. I mean, plasma guns already weren't a serious anti-horde weapon.

I mean, a a biker firing a plasma gun will kill fewer guardsmen than if he'd shot his twin-linked bolter...

Really, what you're talking about is the difference between grav guns and flamers, not between grav guns and plasma.

 Ailaros wrote:
Well, but a plasma gun isn't much better than a regular grav gun. I mean, plasma guns already weren't a serious anti-horde weapon.

I mean, a a biker firing a plasma gun will kill fewer guardsmen than if he'd shot his twin-linked bolter...

Really, what you're talking about is the difference between grav guns and flamers, not between grav guns and plasma.

Depends on the situation. In my last post I made the comparison to Plasma regarding MCs.

Also, I dont know if this is a biggie, but I noticed that grav weapons are concussive. Against some of the big baddies combining that with the land speeder storm could cause a bunch of failed blind checks.

Dont know if that is a biggie or not, since it can reliably get a wound on most big badies.

 Leth wrote:
Also, I dont know if this is a biggie, but I noticed that grav weapons are concussive. Against some of the big baddies combining that with the land speeder storm could cause a bunch of failed blind checks.

Dont know if that is a biggie or not, since it can reliably get a wound on most big badies.

There is also some incredible synergy with Jaws of the World Wolf.

Take a rune priest on a bike, a captain and 5 grav bikers and no MC will survive. Take Living Lightning and meltabombs on your priest as well and no vehicle will survive. I'm sure the squad will be targeted. I use IH allies (could be WS for hit and run but I really do not want to assault anything and prefer the IH bonuses), and my captain or CM can take hits as well as the runic armor priest ... it is not that easy to take them down. This apart from all the other units you should be pressing with anyway. You should not be relying on a single squad to win the game for you. But it can tip the balance in many games.

Yeah it seems to me that the fact that grav guns are concussive crys out for a strong CC component (especialyl force weapons or thunder hammers) to the biker squad (clearly the best platform for it), ESPECIALLY for white scars.

An ideal situtation is to grav an mc, deal maybe 2 wounds to it and then charge. Between str 5 hammer of wrath and said thunder hammer you probably do maybe 2 more wounds and either lose a bike or tank a wound on your captain (given that most generic MCs are non cahracters you wont have to worry about challenging, as a result they'll just do normal attacks and not smash to maximize their odds of doing a wound, thus easier to tank). If, in the case of riptides, they then break and you sweep great! you just one shotted a huge threat. If (more likely), battle rages on it's down to 2 wounds, still concussed, and your bikes are now safe from shooting. Thus on their turn you either kill it or can hit and run out and hopefully mop up on your turn with some other shooting so the bikes can hunt after something else.

Alternatly you put a libby with aforce ax on a bike and charge a concussed MC. Now you can just force weapon him to death and one shot him that way.

 Leth wrote:
Also, I dont know if this is a biggie, but I noticed that grav weapons are concussive. Against some of the big baddies combining that with the land speeder storm could cause a bunch of failed blind checks.

Dont know if that is a biggie or not, since it can reliably get a wound on most big badies.

I just worked the Storm out of my lists since I figured a single Storm would be out of place, and then you have to go and point this out

To re-state what a lot of people think about them, I think they are good -- when used as a supplement to the rest of your list. Spamming them isn't such a good idea.

When comparing them to plasma, I see them being better when taken the following 2 ways:

1. Bike Squads
2. Centurions

Personally I don't use bikes, so I haven't tried them, but on paper we can see it will be a powerful platform.

I have used Centurions in a couple games and found them to be pretty damn devastating. The sheer volume of fire from the Grav-Cannons and the re-roll to wound really does it's job both against vehicles and infantry.

I'm glad I bought them

One quick question I've been wondering and I'm sure has been answered.

With a mixed-armor save unit do you use majority armor save to determine how Graviton works? And in all other cases it's always in the defender's benefit if there is a tie between groups (3 Toughness 6 models and 3 Toughness 3 models for instance) so would you go, in this case, with the "lower" armor value in the tie to the benefit of the defender?

I'm not horribly worried about the Grav weapons as a MC loving Tau player. The real problem in my mind is that if someone dedicates their list to an all-Grav all the time list to really screw me over they have gaping holes with nearly any large horde ork, nid, or IG list. So competitively perhaps I see it in smaller doses (6 guns in 2 squads of bikes for instance) but anything larger risks making their list imbalance in the wrong direction.

GreyDragoon wrote:

I'm not horribly worried about the Grav weapons as a MC loving Tau player. The real problem in my mind is that if someone dedicates their list to an all-Grav all the time list to really screw me over they have gaping holes with nearly any large horde ork, nid, or IG list. So competitively perhaps I see it in smaller doses (6 guns in 2 squads of bikes for instance) but anything larger risks making their list imbalance in the wrong direction.

If you spam grav weapons, you spam them on bikes. If you have bikes, you:
- have twin-linked boltguns
- are playing White Scars with S5 HoW
Both of these are quite effective against hordes.

And spamming grav weapons on bikes aren't that super-duper expensive. You can fit a thunderfire cannon or two and still have points left for AA or whatever you want.

 AtoMaki wrote:
And spamming grav weapons on bikes aren't that super-duper expensive. You can fit a thunderfire cannon or two and still have points left for AA or whatever you want.

Yep. 5 bikes with 2 grav rifles is only 135 points. 6 of those squads is only 810 points. That leaves you a lot of points for the rest of your army.

I think the odd combi grav is useful too, save it for when you don't move or you end up in 9".

6 squads with grav is too many, I'd fit some melta and maybe even some flamers in there.

Personally, I'm looking at two bike squads with grav and a biker captain. Gives me fast shooty troops instead of slow ones with bolters.

Why is it too much?
Two bike-squads can easily destroy vehicles that are 30" away.

You will always have enough speeds/bolters to stay away from blobs.

 Coyote81 wrote:
6 squads with grav is too many, I'd fit some melta and maybe even some flamers in there.

If you want melta, add MM attack bikes.
If you want flamers, take salamander allies in drop pods.

This is the point -- the bikes are cheap enough to where you can bring in other elements to your army.