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Okay just a quick question.

I have made a dev squad consisting of two missile launchers, a plasma cannon and a las cannon. The Sargent has a chains word and grab pistol.

Just wondering how feasible this was in 40k games

This might be in the wrong thread so if it is I apologise.

It's against forum rules to post duplicate threads.

Most people prefer 4x one weapon.

Sometimes I run a devastator squad in larger games. It tends to be 2x missile launcher and 2x lascannon. Plasma cannons are probably the worst heavy weapon for their cost.

The basic rule of thumb is that you should do 4x a single weapon (that way whatever your intended target is, all of your heavy weapons are effective at it so you aren't wasting shots).

Also, I think plasma cannons can be ok. Back in the day I also liked to mix 2 and 2 of complimentary weapons (missile launchers + lascannons for long range anti-tank, or heavy bolters + plasma cannons for medium range anti-infantry). Then each squad can fire together and be mostly ok at what they're doing, or combat squad to split the weapons up so they can focus a little better on optimum targets. This might not be the most points effective, but I mostly liked how it looked and it worked well enough.

The way you have it set up now, anytime you fire your dev squad there will usually be a time where one or more of those weapons isn't really doing much. You're mostly loaded for anti-tank, but the plasma cannon's strength is low enough to struggle against anything but light armor, and it also has a shorter range so it may not even get to fire if the target's far enough away. Even against monstrous creatures or heavy infantry, the missile launchers might not go through their armor, and the plasma cannon might struggle to wound.

This more or less goes for everything in the game; every unit ideally should be spamming the same heavy/special weapons to focus on one mission, or at least picking complimentary ones with similar range and use.

One nice thing though - you can easily build surplus heavy weapon guys and swap them between dev and tac squads till you find the combination you like.

Thanks for your reply, Would swaping the plasma cannon for a multi melts work?

I can also make a squad of 2 heavy bolters and two missile launchers.

But then I'll have a tac squad with a lascannon

You're basically meant to buy two units and swap their weapons over so you have two units of four of a weapon.

Yes, this costs twice as much. They know that.

I'm curious if this suggestion would also apply to SW as they get split-fire (can shoot at different targets), don't they?

kaotkbliss wrote:
I'm curious if this suggestion would also apply to SW as they get split-fire (can shoot at different targets), don't they?

The issue is one of ranges. It's suboptimal to have half your squad with a 24" range and half your squad with a 48" range, because then part of your squad is closer than they have to be or too far away and can't hit.

You can probably get some old devastator bits pretty cheap (ie everything that's not a grav cannon or new legs).

Important is ranges, missiles plus lasers can work as both 48, others at different ranges but no point one expensive weapon being useless or out of range.

There dedicated troops, no point watering them down :-)

You think the pairings option is bad. Chaos Space Marine Havoks come with 4 different Heavy Weapons. Which means having to buy 4 Havok boxes, to be optimal.

Talys wrote:

kaotkbliss wrote:
I'm curious if this suggestion would also apply to SW as they get split-fire (can shoot at different targets), don't they?

The issue is one of ranges. It's suboptimal to have half your squad with a 24" range and half your squad with a 48" range, because then part of your squad is closer than they have to be or too far away and can't hit.

You can probably get some old devastator bits pretty cheap (ie everything that's not a grav cannon or new legs).

jhe90 wrote:Important is ranges, missiles plus lasers can work as both 48, others at different ranges but no point one expensive weapon being useless or out of range.

There dedicated troops, no point watering them down :-)

I have 4x5 man dev squads with a total of 7 missile launchers, 6 plasma cannons, 1 heavy bolter, 2 las cannons (which I could probably give up a plasma or 2 and a few missile launchers for las cannons and bolters)

Way back when I played, it was better to have a bit of variety as the heavy weapons were more effective so you may have only needed 1 or 2 missile launchers to shoot at something. With the SW split fire, I could have 2 missile launchers shoot at the far off tank and the 2 plasma shoot at a closer foot squad or something like that. But since I'm not very familiar with the new rules and from what I've been hearing, heavy weapons aren't really that good anymore so I'd need all 4 to fire at the same target in hopes of taking it out, correct?

kaotkbliss wrote:
Way back when I played, it was better to have a bit of variety as the heavy weapons were more effective so you may have only needed 1 or 2 missile launchers to shoot at something. With the SW split fire, I could have 2 missile launchers shoot at the far off tank and the 2 plasma shoot at a closer foot squad or something like that. But since I'm not very familiar with the new rules and from what I've been hearing, heavy weapons aren't really that good anymore so I'd need all 4 to fire at the same target in hopes of taking it out, correct?

Ughhh, that doesn't bode well for me. I've been assembling another 3 or 4 Long Fang packs to keep with my Company's theme (Gunnar Red Moon likes his Long Fangs.)

Pairings work if everything is geared for the same job i.e. AT or Inf BUT ive always found its better to have 4x of one weapon like Lascannons or Hvy Bolters, it just seems to work better, plus if your desperate 4x lascannons can kill most things being high str AP2 if everything else fails.

kaotkbliss wrote:
I have 4x5 man dev squads with a total of 7 missile launchers, 6 plasma cannons, 1 heavy bolter, 2 las cannons (which I could probably give up a plasma or 2 and a few missile launchers for las cannons and bolters)

Way back when I played, it was better to have a bit of variety as the heavy weapons were more effective so you may have only needed 1 or 2 missile launchers to shoot at something. With the SW split fire, I could have 2 missile launchers shoot at the far off tank and the 2 plasma shoot at a closer foot squad or something like that. But since I'm not very familiar with the new rules and from what I've been hearing, heavy weapons aren't really that good anymore so I'd need all 4 to fire at the same target in hopes of taking it out, correct?

Long Fangs have Split Fire (now). But the way it works now is that a unit with any model with split fire allows ONE unit member (that doesn't have to have split fire) to shoot at another target. The rest of the unit has to shoot all together at the same target.

The reason that heavy weapons (like devastators) are less favored now is because devastators don't have Relentless, and other shooting units do. Centurions, cough, cough, cough. Also, most space marine heavy weapons don't really have a great range, and devastators just melt if they get too close to the enemy. The unit is also pretty expensive, and until Grav cannons, couldn't really kill any of the big stuff reliably to justify the cost.

But you need to take a Devastator squad to make a demi-company for a gladius now, and the new Skyhammer formation makes Devastators actually pretty awesome. At least, on the round they land

In my opinion, the best use of your HW squads is to group them into similar ranges, if nothing else. Split fire is still useful if your squad would overkill something, or if a model doesn't have LoS.

Thank you all for your answers. I know they've helped me and I hope they helped the OP as well