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Brand new to the forum, pleasure to meet you all. Not sure if this was to go in Tactics or Army Lists, so if I misfiled this post, my humblest apologies.

For all intents and purposes, I'm also brand new to the game. I used to play in my teenage years millenia ago, so I used to be adept to 2nd and 3rd edition. I read all of 7th in its entirety, along with the 7th edition space marine codex and the Sentinels of Terra expansion (building an IF army), but yet to play my first 7th edition game, so please excuse my noobish lingo, brutally elementary questions or inevitable lack of understanding. Very excited and working hard to get everything modeled, painted and ready to go. Got about 2,000-ish points of an army thus far.

Curious about effective weapons loadouts for devastator squads these days. I see there's a new Centurion devastator squad that seemingly can take a punch a bit easier than space marine devastators, so my question is in two parts:

1. While I know tactics are dynamic and subject to change based on what your opponent is packing, what would be the deciding factor -- if any -- between loading out a Centurion dev squad versus a Marine dev squad?

2. I notice that different players have different concepts on dev weapons loadouts -- I hear some say that less than 8-man devs are not a good idea, others say they generally load their devs with the same weapons per squad, etc etc. If you were building an Imperial Fists army (which seems to lend a bit more slack to devastator squads with the Siege Masters tank hunting and that bonus +1 damage inflicted on buildings), how many devastator squads would you want to add and what would their weapons loadouts be?

I don't think I've ever seen a Centurion squad on the table with anything other than grav. That's just me, I'm sure some metas have them kitted differently.

As fas as Centurians vs regular Devastators, the big quedtion(aside from durability) is how static you expect the unit to be on the table. All the weapons either would use are Heavy, meaning if you plan on moving them then the regular Devs would only snapshot that turn whereas the Cents can fire a full BS at the expense of running. Most times I see Cents with a transport of some sort if they are running Grav.

 Egregious wrote:
I don't think I've ever seen a Centurion squad on the table with anything other than grav. That's just me, I'm sure some metas have them kitted differently.

Any reason in particular why grav is the best option as opposed to lascannon, etc? Just curious.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

Natec wrote:
As fas as Centurians vs regular Devastators, the big quedtion(aside from durability) is how static you expect the unit to be on the table. All the weapons either would use are Heavy, meaning if you plan on moving them then the regular Devs would only snapshot that turn whereas the Cents can fire a full BS at the expense of running. Most times I see Cents with a transport of some sort if they are running Grav.

As far as Devs go, unless something (or everything) has changed from 3rd edition, I remember I used to generally keep my devastators static on a safe spot on the board, preferably high up (such as building ruins or high ground) and in/behind cover or inside a transport of sorts, but I'm still not sure which (dynamic/static) is the best option yet. I anticipate it varies depending on the opponent army. The Snap rule also makes me question whether or not I wanna keep them in one spot.

How do you generally play Devs in regard to that?

Where else can you get 5 shots at bs 4 that wounds against armor ap2 or strips HP AND immobilizes on a 6 with rerolls.

And to add chest weapons.

 Desubot wrote:
Where else can you get 5 shots at bs 4 that wounds against armor ap2 or strips HP AND immobilizes on a 6 with rerolls.

And to add chest weapons.

At first glance I was thinking the same thing -- Cents seem like the obvious choice for a dev squad over a standard space marine dev squad, but being rather new (especially to Centurions), I wanted to ask seasoned 7th edition vets if there's some sort of advantage to the traditional dev squad over deploying Centurions in their stead.

I primarily play Red Hunters, so I like Devastators because of their ability to gain tank hunter, monster hunter, skyfire, etc. (basically do the re-rolls to wound/pen that grav amps allow) but also play as IF from time to time.

I take Centurion Devastators with Lascannon + Missile launcher load-outs. I like that they can move, and because it requires the opponents AP2 weaponry to get to them (thus leaving the rest of my army alone). They're often in ruins too with a 3+ cover save thanks to a warlord trait or TFC fortifying it. Basically, I'd say take them or a Devastator Squad with Coteaz attached to achieve relatively the same effect for relatively the same points. I do think there is a place for the lascannon/missile build if you don't like static armies (even though they dont' move that far) or need something to draw AP2 fire away from other advancing units.

 xTHExCLINCHERx wrote:
I primarily play Red Hunters, so I like Devastators because of their ability to gain tank hunter, monster hunter, skyfire, etc. (basically do the re-rolls to wound/pen that grav amps allow) but also play as IF from time to time.

I take Centurion Devastators with Lascannon + Missile launcher load-outs. I like that they can move, and because it requires the opponents AP2 weaponry to get to them (thus leaving the rest of my army alone). They're often in ruins too with a 3+ cover save thanks to a warlord trait or TFC fortifying it. Basically, I'd say take them or a Devastator Squad with Coteaz attached to achieve relatively the same effect for relatively the same points. I do think there is a place for the lascannon/missile build if you don't like static armies (even though they dont' move that far) or need something to draw AP2 fire away from other advancing units.

Very interesting! Coteaz + your standard dev squad equals about 180 points, just shy of the Centurions' 190. Not sure if 10 measely points will tip a scale in any single direction, but savings are savings, and for a similar result as well. I'm not too keen on inquisitor rules (if there's any special rules governing them, don't know). Can I play Coteaz in an IF army? Sorry, bit of a noob here.

Its about 180 for a dev squad and coteaz without any heavy weapons. If you are going wtih coteaz its probably best to run with plasma cannons to take advantage of deepstrike clusters.

but then the total cost starts going up.

As well it is a unit with at best 3+ saves and no invuls (besides coteaz 2+.)

The book you want is an Ebook called codex inquisition

they are basicily designed to be allied in. you can run C:INQ with C:SM as they are BBBFFs

The way I'd run the Devs is 178 for 4 lascannons and 7 total bodies, then add Coteaz for a total of 278. Missile & lascannon cents are 280. I like the feeling of being able to move the cents around out of cover even against armies that don't have a lot of AP2, but if you play against deep strikers, go with the more stationary, but protected Coteaz squad. Or if you want go for coteaz + cents and try for perfect timing ~ ouch!