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.

I am looking at these two units in the IG codex and trying to figure out a way of justifying the 130 points to include them in a list. The HH looks ok with the 12" extension from the barrel to place the template for up to 20" range. Bane wolf seems like a potentially fun unit that should have "The Toxic Avenger" painted on its turret but I cant really imagine getting much use from it.

I have not really noticed either of them in use, does anybody use them with much success?

No personal experience, but check out Ailaros latest battle reports for some inspiration. This one for example: http://www.ailarian.com/folera/batreps/hand-of-the-king/hand-of-king-41-tactical.html

If I recall correctly hellhounds featured a lot in the last games before he turned to the dark side...

I find Hellhounds to be effective and alot of fun if used correctly, they are not so effective against MEQ but against most Xenos armies they are quite handy to have against cover camping units and generally do quite well for themselves.

I recommend taking them in pairs for extra fun

The best way to use them is to sell them and buy Vendettas. Vendettas are almost always the better choice, so unless you're deliberately weakening your list to go easy on a newbie you should take them.

If you insist on using a Hellhound variant, never take a Bane Wolf. The zero range on the template means that even against MEQs the Hellhound will usually get so many more hits that it inflicts more unsaved wounds despite not having AP 3. And of course against everything that isn't MEQs the Hellhound is vastly superior.

 Peregrine wrote:
The best way to use them is to sell them and buy Vendettas. Vendettas are almost always the better choice, so unless you're deliberately weakening your list to go easy on a newbie you should take them.

If you insist on using a Hellhound variant, never take a Bane Wolf. The zero range on the template means that even against MEQs the Hellhound will usually get so many more hits that it inflicts more unsaved wounds despite not having AP 3. And of course against everything that isn't MEQs the Hellhound is vastly superior.

You do know that the Vendetta and the BaneHounds do not fill the same role at all, right?

You do know that a substitution in one part of your list can be compensated for with a substitution elsewhere, right? When two units compete for the same force organization slot, the fact that they perform different roles really isn't all that relevant. If one really is that much better than the other, you'll make compromises elsewhere to make it fit.

 Peregrine wrote:
The best way to use them is to sell them and buy Vendettas. Vendettas are almost always the better choice, so unless you're deliberately weakening your list to go easy on a newbie you should take them.

I don't know if I'd go quite that far.

Two Vendettas and a brace of Hellhounds is a nasty way to fill your FA slots. I find Vendettas too cumbersome to be flown in a squadron (ymmv, of course) but two Hellhounds dashing up the board to torch some sneaky, cover-loving (preferably 4+ armour) bastards early in the game can be extremely rewarding. Granted, it's an extra 130 points than 3 Vendettas alone (if you take two) but I have definitely enjoyed the utility of mine.

Of course, my first Hellhound was the second vehicle I ever painted so I'm quite partial to her. Old Ignis Belli and I have had some great, xenos-roasting times...

DoW

Corollax wrote:
You do know that a substitution in one part of your list can be compensated for with a substitution elsewhere, right? When two units compete for the same force organization slot, the fact that they perform different roles really isn't all that relevant. If one really is that much better than the other, you'll make compromises elsewhere to make it fit.

The point of this thread is to discuss Bane wolf and Hellhound tactics, not Vendetta tactics.


I have used my Bane wolf extensively, but it has a hard time surviving all that enemy firepower. The best bet is to keep it hidden, preferably out of LOS, and wait for the enemy to come close. Since you are playing IG, the enemy usually wants to come to you. If you can manage to hide it midfield, they either have to go around it, or somehow take it out before proceeding, otherwise they will loose a squad of something valuable.

If you want to use it aggressively, you have to have at least two in combination with other "in your face" units to get enough target saturation that one of them can make it.

I have attempted to use the hellhound i games before, usually in smaller points, 1,000 or less. It seems to draw alot of fire early on, and there fore leaves the rest of the army alone.

There is a lot of hate for the Banewolf, and much of it is justified. It has poor range and only mediocre survivability. And it competes in the Fast Attack slot against the superior Vendetta. But I'll be damned if it isn't one of the most fun vehicles to use in our Codex.

In my experience, the Banewolf is best used as a quick reaction force to counter deep striking/outflanking enemies or rapidly advancing troops. Wounds on +2 and AP3? Good bye, Power Armored Schmucks. Combine it with Creed to give it Outflank, or keep it in Reserve with an Astropath to make sure it comes in when needed, then laugh as it pops in from nowhere and melts any unit close to the table edge. Keep it hidden in the backfield and then pounce on any enemy that approaches your deployment zone. Sure the range is rubbish, but with a hull Heavy Flamer and the Chem Cannon, you are forcing a lot of wounds on the targeted unit. More often than not, the unit will be decimated and unable to mount a counter offensive. And because it's a Fast Vehicle, it can get where it needs to be in a jiffy and still dish out the hurt. Weapons destroyed? Well now you have a fast tank shock! Alternatively, use a pair of them to race up the flanks, with a cadre of Chimera Veterans following behind, to harass and distract your opponent from more viable targets.

Yes, it can be situational, but it has always earned its points back for me. Nurgle Bikers aren't very threatening when you remove them by the handful. Of course, the Mathhammer types might say otherwise, but I heartily recommend taking it for a spin and enjoying the chaos. And if the enemy is too busy shooting at your Template-ranged AV 12/12/10 vehicle then they aren't shooting at your juicer units.

As for the Hellhound, well, I love the thing. The ability to smite some cover-camping cowards while retaining speed and mobility is nothing to sniff at. Against armies that live by their cover saves, it will absolutely wreck them from a distance. It's quite useful for targeting those units that are objective camping too, since those are usually placed in cover to begin with. That ADL or forest doesn't mean much when the Hellhound comes a calling. Also handy for character sniping since Templates follow the standard rules for wound allocation i.e. the closest model takes all the wounds until they are saved or is removed. Situational, sure, but handy when it happens. A fun tank to use that has decent threat range and pairs well with another Hellhound.

Sure, these tanks aren't the best Fast Attack choice when you've access to dirt cheap flyers with triple lascannons, but winning isn't everything. Sometimes it's just fun to have giant flamethrower tanks racing about the field burninating the peasants.

You'll have to excuse Peregrine...he often doesn't undertand how to answer questions without going on a power-trip tangent.

I'd go with the Hellhound, far more versatile.

The Banewolf can be a great tool. It's really a terror weapon that must be dealt with by MEQ armies, especially ones that use drop pods. For 130 points you can take a pair of melta guns away from your more expensive LR tanks, or more devastating Ordinance tanks.

If you're clever about deployment, and a bit lucky, you can also have it survive that initial onslaught and do some serious damage. Squading them up also greatly increases survivability.

Hellhouds are very very useful in vehicle heavy armies. They give you that guaranteed anti-infantry torrent fire. I'm partial to the HF hull weapon for saturation, but there's something to be said for a MM on a fast chassis as well for very little points.

I've been playing an Armored Battle Group lately and with minimal infantry squads of Hellhounds fill in the gaps really well.

With Creed's tactical genius you can scout it across the field and decimate any heavy weapons squad out there. Alternatively putting them in reserve lets them come in when they're needed.

Odviously using them makes the list 'non-optimal' according to the web-forum audiance. Frankly I think that they're wrong about this one though. If a flame tank fits in a list its worth its weight in gold.

BTW. Try hitting a Hellhound unit with presence from divination. Twin linked torrent flame templates are stupid good.

I'm running 2 hell hounds in my list, since I have a theme of being an armoured company I don't like to take my vendettas too much.

Yesterday they saved my butt, because of the torrent range you can hold them back and I even had one sitting behind a building and I just flamed the hell out of a nurgle daemon army advancing on me. Combined with my 2 executioner tanks it was a brutal template dropping frenzy.

My vendettas would have been absolutely worthless against that army, the hellhounds easily made their points back.

war wrote:
Try hitting a Hellhound unit with presence from divination. Twin linked torrent flame templates are stupid good.

No. Prescience lets you re-roll failed to-hit rolls. It does NOT make the weapons twin-linked. And since Hellhounds don't roll to hit with their main weapons the only thing prescience will help is the hull gun. Which is generally a waste of prescience.

 mr_bruno wrote:
Sure the range is rubbish, but with a hull Heavy Flamer and the Chem Cannon, you are forcing a lot of wounds on the targeted unit. More often than not, the unit will be decimated and unable to mount a counter offensive.

The problem is that zero range on a flamer means that the Hellhound will often do more damage because it hits so many more models with the template. It's sometimes counter-intuitive, but merely having AP 3 doesn't make a weapon good against MEQs.

Also handy for character sniping since Templates follow the standard rules for wound allocation i.e. the closest model takes all the wounds until they are saved or is removed.

Yes, but "closest model" is measured from the firing unit, not from the template. You're removing the exact same models that you would be if you'd shot them with any other weapon, so a Hellhound is no better at character sniping than any other unit.

 Peregrine wrote:
The best way to use them is to sell them and buy Vendettas. Vendettas are almost always the better choice, so unless you're deliberately weakening your list to go easy on a newbie you should take them.

If you insist on using a Hellhound variant, never take a Bane Wolf. The zero range on the template means that even against MEQs the Hellhound will usually get so many more hits that it inflicts more unsaved wounds despite not having AP 3. And of course against everything that isn't MEQs the Hellhound is vastly superior.

And then cry in March when Vendetta/Vulture get nerfed by a point cost boost.

 aliusexalio wrote:
And then cry in March when Vendetta/Vulture get nerfed by a point cost boost.

Or boosted by a point cost reduction, followed by a "ally IG with IG so you can take more Vendettas" supplement.

 Peregrine wrote:

 aliusexalio wrote:
And then cry in March when Vendetta/Vulture get nerfed by a point cost boost.

Or boosted by a point cost reduction, followed by a "ally IG with IG so you can take more Vendettas" supplement.

There are greater odds of you making an intelligent post with polite regard for someone's admiration for a model.

Despite the typical internet naysayer "Only this unit should be used cause it's the bestest of the best toy soldiers", hellhounds and the variants definitely have a place in lists. It's really dependant on your local meta, how you play them, yadda yadda.

Lots of variables, though I personally have a ton of fun with them and that's what I care more about. Plus I have an panzer division theme so hellhounds fit the theme much better.

 Peregrine wrote:

war wrote:
Try hitting a Hellhound unit with presence from divination. Twin linked torrent flame templates are stupid good.

No. Prescience lets you re-roll failed to-hit rolls. It does NOT make the weapons twin-linked. And since Hellhounds don't roll to hit with their main weapons the only thing prescience will help is the hull gun. Which is generally a waste of prescience.

Right you are.

Idk, I still like them. The amount of damage potential they can cause is impressive. Just don't expect them to take down enemy flyers

No, Vendetta's are not the Be all End all of the imperial guard army. Hellhounds (and to a less extent the devildog and banewolf) still have a place in your army. Say you are playing against gunline tau, its quite likely for the vendetta to be blown out of the sky with interceptor fire, while a hellhound can reek utter havoc on a large fire warrior squad all in a line behind their ADL. IG have very little access to ignore cover, especially on fast models, and the hellhound is the only unit that can fulfil this role (to a less extent I guess a vendetta with flamers in, but they won't be on the board till turn 2 at least so lose some viability) and can handle things that get into cover with a 2+ save. I can see the Devildog being fun, but not overly competitive, but deffinatly more fun then the banewolf because at least you get to shoot. I don't like the Banewolf, because IF it ever gets to shoot, it's likely to only get 1 shot off before it dies, so over the game its quite likely for the hellhound to wrack up the same amount of kills simply through forced saves.

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:
No, Vendetta's are not the Be all End all of the imperial guard army. Hellhounds (and to a less extent the devildog and banewolf) still have a place in your army. Say you are playing against gunline tau, its quite likely for the vendetta to be blown out of the sky with interceptor fire, while a hellhound can reek utter havoc on a large fire warrior squad all in a line behind their ADL. IG have very little access to ignore cover, especially on fast models, and the hellhound is the only unit that can fulfil this role (to a less extent I guess a vendetta with flamers in, but they won't be on the board till turn 2 at least so lose some viability) and can handle things that get into cover with a 2+ save. I can see the Devildog being fun, but not overly competitive, but deffinatly more fun then the banewolf because at least you get to shoot. I don't like the Banewolf, because IF it ever gets to shoot, it's likely to only get 1 shot off before it dies, so over the game its quite likely for the hellhound to wrack up the same amount of kills simply through forced saves.

There is the Leman Russ Eradicator and the Colossus, though they're questionably decent increasingly in that order.

I personally think AV14 and the greater range wins out the LRERA for me at the moment, though I can see a number of scenarios where I could take a Hellhound or two when my HS slots are full.

I personally think the Hellhound and its variants cost too much for what they do, but despite this I find myself warming up to it and can't help but wonder if it's a better fit than the Leman Russ for mechanized guard. It's faster, saturates AV12, throwing the flamer template will probably net you more kills than the pie plate Russes, and is a great way to cover up the anti-infantry weaknesses from all those plasma and melta guns you're packing in your vet squads.

Ive only used hellhounds once before and it was usually 1 by itself as vednettas took up the other 2 fast attack slots. I plan on maybe getting 2 hellhounds and having them squadron and zip around buring troops. Now should i give them the Hull heavy flamer or maybe give them a MM???

I wouldn't go with MM. if your going to bring a HH its going to be for anti infantry and the only time a MM will be useful would be against an infantry squad is if there was a t4 tank with a 2+ armor save.

*coff*Devil Dog*coff*

I have always done well with my Hellhound (just got a second, never played 2 yet). It dumps wounds on units like little else, and cover/go to ground does zip. Against anything not MEQ it will nearly always make its points back and run rampant until (if) heavy fire takes it down. Even against MEQ it's very common for it to peel two to four marines off a squad every turn. It's amazing against nearly any Xenos army. It's probably about ten, maybe fifteen points overcosted. But it is a workhorse. Its accuracy makes it often far better than a pie-plate Russ in my experience, certainly against typical lists you will see of late that only play maybe fifty models all told, where a round or two of bad scatter can mean you're in trouble. I don't think it's amazing in the current, rather stagnant tourney meta vs. cron air/screamerstar/cheaty lists but it should do some serious damage to a lot of armies, including Taudar and DE/Eldar, or I could see one or two making a Tervigon list unable to score. If you've something else to knock out fliers, I could see Cron Air being dead in the water pretty quickly.

I wouldn't give them the heavy flamer at all. Getting that close is effectively suicide unless your opponent's forces in the local area have been completely wiped. As 'War' said the MM isn't worth it either because its extra points and isn't effective enough or needed enough to justify its inclusion. I'd genuinely go with the heavy bolter just for more supporting fire, on a consistent basis without having to get close to make full use of the tank's weaponry.

Razerous wrote:
*coff*Devil Dog*coff*

the devil dog was great in fifth when light vehicles were everywhere, honestly in sixth it doesn't have enough targets.

I actually think the hellhound is a solid choice against all non meq armies. If you're running mech guard, and you should be, it'll be part of a solid wall of av 12 so you shouldn't be too concerned about survivability.

The banewolf is pretty crappy because it rquires you to be too close, and pretty much all meq have melta guns and power fists/ melta bombs... You should be driving away from that, not towards it.

Gotcha, thanks for the help! MM just seems like it would just add points to an already overcosted tank that will only help in limited situations. The heavy flamer is risky as it means you need to get really close to your opponent but boy would it be fun to just tank shock into an opponent and just shoot flame everywhere! The heavy bolter just makes sense because it allows you to keep the distance between your opponent and you.