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Between the space marine hellbaster and suppressor which would you take as part of a gunline army?
A few notes
Suppressors have their suppression ability which is always nice to have. On top of that their sergeant can trade out his shooting for a squad wide -1 to hit. This is probably not going to be worth doing atm due to it being a 33% loss in firepower, but if /when their squad is allowed to be bigger it could be worth doing as it would then only be a 16% drop to heavily boost the survivability of the squad. They have also are far faster with a move of 12" and the fly keyword.

Comparing their weapons

Hellblasters with their (IMO) only good loadout clock in at 33ppm with a rapid fire 1 30" s7 ap-4 1 dmg shot or s8 ap-4 2dmg shot when overcharged (which in my experience they are overcharged 99% of the time).
Suppressors clock in at 35 points per model with a heavy 2 48" s7 ap-2 2 dmg shot .

So my first impressions would be that suppressors beat out hellblasters against nearly all targets outside of 15 inches due to their rate of fire being twice that of the hellblaster while their inferior quality is off set by pure rate of fire.

Any thoughts on this topic on which would work best for a castle type unit? I think there are pros and cons both ways. I',m also very willing to bet we will see suppressor squad sizes go up to 6 in the near feature.

Here's the average wounds for the two guns against a few targets, with the hellblaster rapid firing and overcharged:

Suppressor Average wounds
Rhino 0.89
MEQ 1.19
Knight 0.59
Skyweaver 0.67
Plaguebearer 0.59

Hellblaster
Rhino 1.78
MEQ 2.22
Knight 0.89
Skyweaver 0.83
Plaguebearer 0.74

This assumes -1 to hit vs the skyweaver and plaguebearer, but no additional buffs, rerolls, stratagems and so on. As such to be honest it's a bit unrealistic, as all of those are likely to apply!

The hellblaster does always out-damage a suppressor, if it can get within 15" and overcharge. But that's quite a bit "if" of course. The suppressor's big advantage here is that he can fire at 48" and doesn't blow himself up - which is a significant risk for the hellblaster if firing at skyweavers or plaguebearers.

My plan would be to take both. You need all the firepower you can get and these are your two best options. I've actually put together a Primaris list recently and it features 20 hellblasters and 9 suppressors. I'm not sure that's enough!

I think another advantage Suppressor have is that they are a bit lower priority due to only being 3 models that will be far away.
Hellblasters needing to get close and minimum 5 models makes them a much easier target.

If given the choice between 6 Hellblasters and 2x 3 Suppressors, I'd actually that the Suppressors every time.
That is, until Primaris can get a feasible transport.

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Suppressors are better in a high invuln meta. Period.

Martel732 wrote:
Suppressors are better in a high invuln meta. Period.

Right. AP-2 really is the sweet spot to remove as much armour before getting to an invul save. AP-4 is often wasted.

However, there is something to be said about being Str8.

-

S8 is nice, but overloading to get it makes it far less attractive.

Supressor haves a big issue for me but I can deal with it. You will move them so you are hitting on 4+. But the most important for me is that if you kill one mini of the unit they can not overwatch so you can prepare nice tactics if you have some good melee unit.

Hitting on 4 is fine. Its the reality for marine heavy weapons.

Martel732 wrote:
Hitting on 4 is fine. Its the reality for marine heavy weapons.

Normally yes, but, how many times I have 3´s in that case you can´t imagine

I can. 16% of the time.

Supressors are a lot better for what you are going for. They are pretty decent units in the 2 games I have played them. It really irritates me I have to pay for deep strike because they will NEVER be deep striking.

Martel732 wrote:
I can. 16% of the time.

More way to 61 than to 16. But I asume it, like when I hit on 3´s rerolling 1´s and half of the dices shows me 2´s

Martel732 wrote:
Hitting on 4 is fine. Its the reality for marine heavy weapons.

Hitting on 3's rerolling all hits or go home for me.

So with the statistics shown above we can conclude that suppressors may very well be the better option for a sit back and shoot firebase, but it's not a clear choice. Hellblasters are massively better up close and perform a counter assault and shooting option way better, but the suppressors outshine them everywhere else. You can move and shoot hellblasters all day at no penalty, but suppressors are penalized for that, however on the topic of movement they can fly around far faster and can't be tied up in CC.

Also one thing I'd like to point out is that the above examples did not include buffs through re-rolls which would tilt in favor towards the suppressors when outside 15 even further due to them having more shots that can benefit from re-rolls. Suppressors also do not require as much baby sitting as hellblasters.

I think I am in the camp of making sure to bring no small number of either because they don't really replace each other and they excel in different fields.

 Xenomancers wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Hitting on 4 is fine. Its the reality for marine heavy weapons.

Hitting on 3's rerolling all hits or go home for me.

Uhhh..okay.

Martel732 wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Hitting on 4 is fine. Its the reality for marine heavy weapons.

Hitting on 3's rerolling all hits or go home for me.

Uhhh..okay.

You could do this with Dante but I understand he sucks.

All other marines have chapter master upgrade at the very least and will be rerolling all hits. Moving means you aren't reroling 3's so that really hurts your damage which not only sucks but it tilts me too.

Dante doesn't suck per se, he's got his advantages.

Alex_85 wrote:
Supressor haves a big issue for me but I can deal with it. You will move them so you are hitting on 4+. But the most important for me is that if you kill one mini of the unit they can not overwatch so you can prepare nice tactics if you have some good melee unit.

With a 48" range, it is not like you have to move them. Park them in cover and treat them as you would Devastators. With the added bonus that they can move 12" if you need to redeploy and have the Fly keyword to get them out of trouble if the enemy assaults them.

Just because they have jump packs, don't be lulled into thinking you have to keep them on the move like Inceptors. Their range gives them a lot of flexibility.

To muddy the waters a bit, the new Phobos warlord trait that gives +1 to hit for a unit nearby really buffs Hellblasters into the stratosphere.

Hitting on 2s, rerolling 1s if the warlord is a Captain and immune to exploding (unless you're firing at -1 to hit targets).

I think suppressors have a place in some lists, but Hellblasters are still king imo.

IanVanCheese wrote:
To muddy the waters a bit, the new Phobos warlord trait that gives +1 to hit for a unit nearby really buffs Hellblasters into the stratosphere.

Hitting on 2s, rerolling 1s if the warlord is a Captain and immune to exploding (unless you're firing at -1 to hit targets).

I think suppressors have a place in some lists, but Hellblasters are still king imo.

Hellblasters still suffer the problem of getting there. Plasma inceptors at least can get into position and you can infiltrate the warlord (probably one of the new Librarians) into position for easy turn 2 strike. If you are ultra marines you can just spend 1 cp to make them reroll 1's.

You can bring a unit of sniper scouts or eliminators on the flank you want to hit to protect the libby as well.

IanVanCheese wrote:
To muddy the waters a bit, the new Phobos warlord trait that gives +1 to hit for a unit nearby really buffs Hellblasters into the stratosphere.

Hitting on 2s, rerolling 1s if the warlord is a Captain and immune to exploding (unless you're firing at -1 to hit targets).

I think suppressors have a place in some lists, but Hellblasters are still king imo.

I find hellblasters unplayably awful. I really don't get the positive comments. Drukhari? You just lost the game. Alaitoc? You just lost. Iks? Theyre useless.

THE PHOBOS +1 to hit warlord trait might be best used on inceptors. The lieutenant can drop in with them, make them safe from exploding and let them reroll 1s to wound. No need to infiltrate someone into position (if you even know the right place to send them).

People are still saying that you’ll always have -1 to hit with suppressors, which is obviously nonsense. There’s no rule forcing you to move them! In fact, as a crimson fist player, it’s somewhat easier for me to find their 3-man units to find a target that outnumbers them 2:1, against which they get a +1 to hit .