[Doombreed]

Alright, so I have made a few tweaks to my current 1,500pt CSMarine army and I can't deciede what to use. I have 360pts to spent on a 'shooty' gunline and I love Autocannons and the amount of pain they can dish out somy choices are:

210pts
8x Havocs: IoCG, 4x Autocannons

and

150pts
CPredator: Twin-linked Lascannon, Heavybolter Sponsons, Havoc Launcher

OR

2 squads of
180pts
6x Havocs: IoCG, 4x Autocannons

I can give you my whole list if your curious or think it would help my decision.
Help me out, thanks guys and gals. :victory:

 

[ChaosSpaceMarineGuy]

Well, It would help to know what is in the rest of your list, but I think the 2 squads of 6x Havocs: IoCG, 4x Autocannons might be the best. The problem i find that if you do decide to use that layout of the predator then if you soot at anything over armor 11 then the heavy bolters are useless.

 

[Bushido]

Both are pretty good so i think it would come down to how many other vehicles you are fielding. If you have a couple of other tanks rolling around in your list a pred is great since there will be more targets for anti-tank fire.

The only thing you might want to change is drop the havoc launcher for EA

 

[Stephen_Newman]

Why not go for Obliterators?

 

[Barnster]

Is it just me or could the tactical advice for current chaos codex always summed up in " why not get some oblits"?

Wacth out if your going all auto cannon for high armour targets like landrainders or monoliths

 

[Stephen_Newman]

Well its just that oblits come with good saves, multi wounds and a nice variety of weapons.

 

[Dawnstar]

Personally, I'd go for the 2 squads of Autocannon Havocs. Deploy them right, and you'll cover a fair bit of the board and make the enemy think twice before he puts something in their range

 

[Bloodcuddler of Khorne]

On paper Obliterators are probably the best CSM dakka, but for some reason I always roll 1s for their saves. It's maddening.

I'm honestly not sure I would use either of those setups. They're alright, but like they've pointed out, against high armor the autocannons won't do much, and the heavy bolters will be wasted.

I find that predators work best when specialized to compensate for something I'm lacking. Usually that will be anti-tank, since I'm a noise marine fanatic, so an all lascannon pred can be nice there. If you want horde killing, autocannon/heavy bolter is awesome. The problem with lascannon/heavy bolter is that you have two guns good at different things, so no matter what you shoot at one of your shots will be wasted in some way unless you're shooting at an MC or high toughness infantry.

If you want a take-all-comers support choice and want to avoid Obliterators, I would strongly consider Havocs with missile launchers. That way you can just decide what mode you shoot it in based on what you shoot. I'm also a big fan of Defilers with 2 CC weapons. Their guns might not hit as hard as vindicators, but they're still high enough to be awesome, much longer range and if you don't wanna pie plate something you can fleet it up and smack things around. That and they're something loyalist marines can't take, and anything that shows that we're not just like the 9198751978761861 Space Marine armies out there is a win in my book just for being on the table.

I'm personally not a big fan of autocannons. At S7 it's just enough to be too low to reliably be an anti-tank weapon, while only having two shots means you have much better choices against most infantry. The only thing is strikes me as being really good at doing is taking out monstrous creatures, which means it's really only good against Tyranids and Daemon armies that take Princes over Soul Grinders. At least that's my view on them, I've been wrong before.

So, if it's between those two with no other options, I'd go with the predators. At least one of their guns will be useful whatever you're shooting it at.

 

[DarKKKKK]

I have actually used 2 squads of 4 autocannon havocs. :shok: Wow they have done a number against my opponents. If you set them up to catch your opponent in a crossfire between them both, its awesome :mrgreen: It would be interesting to see the rest of your list though to make sure you have enough anti-heavy tank a.k.a. anything above a 13 armour. To make a suggestion for a good unit to deal with that is a squad or two of 5 chosen in a rhino all with meltaguns to outflank.

 

[Doombreed]

Oblits are probubly the worst choice for dakka. They use powerful specialized weapons and not buckets of bullets to get the job done, plus I really cant stand using them.

Thanks for the input guys. I decided to go with 1 squad of Havocs and 1 Pred for two reason: 1) Pred is cheaper and can still put out a decent amount of hurt. 2) If I have to start the game off the table atleast one of those units can shoot after it moves. Below I put my current list and as you can see I tried to have a decent number of anti-armour and anit-horde to throw around. The only thing I kinda don't like about the list is that most of my units are fairly easy to kill so I might still have to move some points around.

In my list I have:

2x DPrinces w/ wings, warptime
1x Termicide unit w/ 3x combi-meltas
1x Dread w/ multimelta and heavy flamer
2x CSM units with champ w/ powerfist, 2x flamers, rhino w/ havoc launcher
1x LDeamon unit of 10
and now adding:
1x Havoc units of 6 w/ 4x Autocannons
1x CPreadtor w/ twin-linked lascannon, heavy bolter sponsons and havoc launcher

 

[Annabelle]

I would never put heavy bolters and a las cannon on the same predator.

 

[Jono]

term's with 1x combi plas, 1x combi melta and 1x Reaper auto cannon 125 points, that x3.

Good dakka, good survival and anoying to fight against.

and its a bit outside the box, sort of, unless its inside your box, then its not outside.

 

[Warlock in Training]

All the choices in the CSM Dex are solid, However Oblits are NO.1, followed by Defilers, and Vindis.

 

[Kurrent]

Oblits are not the number 1 sorry to say. in math hammer they do well, but volume of fire is far more important. Havoc squads get more shots. sure no Plasmacannon, but thats why we have Chaos dreadnoughts. Better to run a squad of 6 havoks x4 LC then to field a unit of x3 oblits at least when it comes to taking out high av armies. Accuracy by volume wins. I've found this out several times when faced with an orc Gunline. 60 shots from shootas kill more marines than the rapid firing of the bolters.

Oblits in my local meta game die far to fast, with hammerheads and monoliths and landaiders etc. they get targeted before Demon princes, and generally, if a squad of broadsides aims at the oblits, the oblits lose, when the squad of broadsides aims at havocs, I generally get cover save if the tau player can find them hidden behind a rhino.

its all based on what works in your local metagame. I personally find that oblits last 1st turn or second turn if i don't hold them for DS and when they DS they get killed the turn after they come in. so do whatcha want and field whatever army you like.

 

[Vaz]

2 squads of
180pts
6x Havocs: IoCG, 4x Autocannons

This. blah limit.

 

[ckcrawford]

I would get some obliterators. Ussually I am in favor of Havocs, but your list doesn't contain a lot of "ranged" fire power. So, sure you have good amount of shots with your autocannons however, I believe that having lascannons would really help you just in case you have to deal with an army with a bunch of mechanized units like predators or vindicators. Or even daemon princes, carnifexes, and hive tyrants... etc... that type of thing. The versatility you need will definitely be provided with obliterators.

p.s. if worried about buying them at a hefty price just make your own. luck man

 

[Doombreed]

Thanks for all the ideas and to be honest I believe what I'm going to do is swap them both out with two 180pt units of 6x Havocs w/ IoCG and 4x Missle Launchers. I've used this once before and they were the bane of my opponents. These units give me plenty of options as I will not have to worry about having to choose with "anti-" I will need.