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Ok something was brought up in another thread about Honour Your Wargear and I decided to think about it as a possibility for a shooting army from hell. . .

What are your opinions on using 6 devastator squads, I was thinking of balancing out my shooting with a few squads of scouts for counter-assault, and probably a command squad for counter-assault as well. . .

I wiped one off the table last night despite bad luck initially.

Your results may vary.

I just broke down and did the math hammer on the army list page, and frankly the only reason to use basic Heavy Support Devastator Squads over either of the Predator variants is if your smoking crack. . . however they might work if you want to use them instead of terminators or dreadnaughts for elite choices. . .

The only time the Devastators outperform the Predators is when you use heavy bolter devastators and the extra bolters against MEQ's and GEQ's, versus Predator Annihalators with Heavy Bolter Sponsoons however that doesn't show the increased range, movement and armor of the Predator.

I used these as the comparisons

330 points for 3, AV 13 tanks with 2 heavy bolters, and an auto-cannon
330 points for 2, 7 man Devastator Squads with 4 Heavy Bolters each

435 points for 3, AV 13 tanks with 2 Las-cannons, and a Twin linked Las-Cannon
430 points for 2, 5 man Devastator squads with 4 Las-cannons each

The big problem with it is that it makes you an extremely static army. A good maneuver general will smoke it, simply because it can't react to what's happening to it.

The only way I can see that this trait is useful is to fit more "heavy support" choices in the army. 6 Dev squads is just excessive, and gets you stuck in a static mindset.

Don't discount the ability to take Infiltrate or Tank Hunters.

Plus, in most missions elites deploy later than heavy support which is an advantage in and of itself.

Well, your math may be right, but you're really not using the best option to marines for their dev squads (4 missile launchers) and you're not taking in to account how easily predators are reduced in efficacy or even destroyed. It's much harder to reduce the shooting power of a dev squad (especially one that infiltrated in to cover) than it is to knock a weapon off, stun or kill a predator. Of course the two best parts of Honor Your Wargear are being able to take a couple of preds and still have two or three dev squads and the ever-important impact of being able to infiltrate your dev squad so that you deploy last instead of first.

Or you could use it to have yor cake and eat it.

As in you take dev squads for your elite choices and preds for your heavy.
then you have the best of both worlds.

But I think the Idea of having 6 dev squads would be interesting...

Honour Yoru Wargear is bomb if you're playing with an infantry-heavy army. In an armoured force, vennies are probably a slightly better pick.
Heavy Support Devastators are actually pretty good. If you have any other heavy support choices of any kind - okay, maybe not Land Raiders - five devastators with boltguns are excellent pushback.
If you run x6 devs, I'd say one should be said push-back unit, probably heavy bolters on the heavy support and missile launcher/tank hunter on the elite. You'll probably want 2x8 Assault Marines with power fists and special weapons to back them up, on top of the Tacs who get to carry the lascannons and plasma. Master probably best HQ choice to boost shooting. You could even toy with a tank hunting command squad with x2 missile launcher, though it's not the most efficient unit.

Citadel, I also feel you're failing to take into account the difference in durability between a Predator and even a 5-man Dev squad. Predators are not likely to last much longer than a turn after they're exposed to enemy fire. Devs can shrug off a lot more fire, especially if they're in cover.

Also, you don't seem to be considering a Dev squad with 4 missile launchers. The versatility of that squad far outweighs what you can get from a Predator of either variant. The only thing that such a squad is not especially threatening to is infantry with 2+ saves.

As far as Honour Your Wargear is concerned, I've thought of a lot of ways I'd use that. For starters, you could have missile launchers that are effectively lascannons against most vehicles, and still get access to that handy frag missile for anti-infantry work. I also think that a Dev squad with 4 heavy bolters and Tank Hunters would be phenomenal. Not much good against heavy vehicles, but suddenly those HBs can threaten AV12 vehicles and get Penetrating hits on Rhinos. It can also be worthwhile to put your Heavy Support down after your opponent has deployed his HS and his Troops

I have used an 8 man with 2 Plasma Cannons 2 Heavy Bolters and Tank Hunters, here is why.....you can nails troops and now at S8 and S6 good for killing Light armor, but here is where it is really nice vs open topped armor it's 2 S8 hits per Plasma Cannon hit, so on open topped armor, you could have 4 S8 hits and 6 S6 hits, not a bad unit it can really do it all. But I know just saying the words "Plasma Cannon" is taboo, so there for anything I say must be wrong.

I'm forced to take it for my Mantis Warriors, so I run 2 predators, a vindicator and a six man devvie squad with 3 missile launchers and tank-hunter in the elite slot.

They're brilliant, I highly recommend missile launchers with tank-hunter (as someone already suggested above).

Posted By spikydavid on 03/13/2006 3:16 PM
They're brilliant, I highly recommend missile launchers with tank-hunter (as someone already suggested above).

I have to agree, I'll run 3 with a lascannon or 2 of each, most of the time I fire the missile launchers first and never need to fire the las, but it's nice to know you have a S10 shot ready!