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I'm fairly close to finalizing my 1500 BA dreadnought list. But I have a few questions about some of the wargear choices, namely the Frag Cannon.

What are your thoughts on the weapon? On paper assault 2 str 6 with rending seems to be pretty legit, however its lack of ap has me concerned slightly. Has anyone used the cannon to good affect? is it worth taking or am I better off with more bloodtalons or some other weapon option? Bare in mind I plan to drop pod the frag cannon dreads, so they should have a chance to unleash at least once on the target of their choice.

The list if interested.



Additionally any feedback on the list would be nice (tactics feedback) although I know this isnt the forum for that.

I used one in one of my last games as a Blood Angels player and, even with the AP-, it did a solid number of wounds.

As for tactics, I didn't do anything fancy...drop drop pod, get good scatter, disembark, fire, and wound away.

The frag cannon is a really awesome weapon. In a game about torrent of wounds, its hard to beat this thing.

The really nice party is that the dread can disembark the full 6" and the let it rip! It's debatable whether to use a heavy flamer or meltagun. I use the heavy flamer for maximum template death.

It's a great weapon, works against hordes and heavy infantry. My only beef with it is that it can't be taken on a Heavy Support Dreadnought, or as the loadout for the Libby Dreadnought. The Blood Claws are hard to say no to.

I think blood claws kinda suck now. Actually I thought they weren't all that in 5th either, but now they definitely are a big gamble.

The key to the frag cannon is that is works as soon as your dreadnought arrives. Your opponent takes it in the face at least once. Fragcannon also makes many types of jet bikes sad pandas.

The blood talon scheme relies on a delivery method. If you drop pod them, I can melta it, or flee, or assault it with something that can handle it, or shoot it with lascannons, etc. I have options.

Blood Talons are still AP3, and in 5th you really didn't use them to kill terminators anyway. You used them to kill swarms of cheap infantry. None of which have a 2+ save.

I used my dreadnought to kill termies all the time. AV 13 and the magic damage table tarpitted them forever.

Even ignoring that, the blood talon scheme is all in on some kind of delivery that may or may not go right. Also, you lose versatility in that you can't use the blood talon dreadnought to finish off things like wraithlords in a pinch. I prefer the blood fist in most situations. It's key that a fragnought gets to keep one blood fist to me.

Wraithlords only have 3+ armor. You do need 6s to wound though.

Martel732 wrote:
I used my dreadnought to kill termies all the time. AV 13 and the magic damage table tarpitted them forever.

Even ignoring that, the blood talon scheme is all in on some kind of delivery that may or may not go right. Also, you lose versatility in that you can't use the blood talon dreadnought to finish off things like wraithlords in a pinch. I prefer the blood fist in most situations. It's key that a fragnought gets to keep one blood fist to me.

If you want talons, go with Death Company Dread. With rage you're charging in with 6 attacks. With Furious Charge, you should average around 11 wounds vs T5 or less models.
Due to furious charge, you should on average kill a wraithlord (averaging over 3.5 wounds). But due to the mechanic of the talons, you get a pretty extreme variation from "average".

If you are taking the AV13 elite dread, go with frag and fist. I wouldn't bother with double fists, if you want quantity of attacks that's the job of the Death Company Dread.
I'd take the heavy flamer as well, if you go template, go all in. You can fall back on the fist if you need to swat a tank.

-Matt