|
Post by yoritomo on Mar 1, 2014 22:34:13 GMT
Let's see, 9 shots that always hit the table, all being S9 with a range of 36". Sure, not being Ap1 sucks, but it's not the end of the world. While I don't see this a being our fix for vehicle problems it does seem like an excellent way to bring down a knight on turn 1. Heck, if this even has the potential to solve our upcoming knight problem then I say it's worth looking into.
Think about this for a second. The knight is Av 13 on the front and Av 12 on the sides. The maneuverability of FMCs means we should be able to get side shots more often than not. That's a hull point 2/3rds of the time. Plus the tyrants have a chance of getting warp blast for an extra couple of S10 lance shots. Stripping hull points should be easy with that many S9/10 shots; provided you hit of of course.
Let's think about that for a moment. The small blast is what, 2 inches wide? And the knight is on a 60mm base at least, probably an oval base. Together that's around 4 inches the template can scatter and still be on target. With the Bs reduction included you can roll as much as a 7 for scatter and still hit (an 8 for the tyrant). Including the hit result we should be sticking our HVC shots 2/3rds of the time. Nobody complains that a space marine with a lascannon is Bs 4, why should we complain about this?
And since we are the more maneuverable unit we can use the 36" range to stay our of close combat and that S-D chain whatever. This leaves the battle cannons and heavy stubbers as their only weapons against us, and those are some of the least effective weapons you can use on a regular MC, much less a FMC.
All and all I don't think this will make a good all comers list, but if you know your opponent is going to go hog wild on knight I think this could be a viable counter.
|
|
|
Post by gigasnail on Mar 1, 2014 22:58:13 GMT
9 shots per turn. 6 hit. 4's to glance, 5+ to pen. so one glance, 2 pens on average. (sorry) 1 pen 2 glances average. 1.5 HP after 4+ invul. ehhh.
|
|
|
Post by yoritomo on Mar 1, 2014 23:22:27 GMT
so one glance, 2 pens on average. (sorry) 1 pen 2 glances average. I'm sorry, but how do you figure two glances and a pen? My math tells me that I'm more likely to roll a 5 or 6 than just a 4. And if you do get two pens then you have a 1/3 chance of rolling a 6 on the pen table. Pens verses glances make a big difference, even without the +1 for being Ap 2. Also, you're forgetting that we have 9 units spamming those HVCs. 5 of them can move 36". If you can't put those flyers on the side armor then you're playing someone better than I've ever seen in 20 years of 40K. That a decent chance for 3 pens and a glance if you can do 5 hits on the side. Plus any extra damage from warp blasts your tyrant might have. And let's not forget that only one side gets that 4+ save. If you can get on both sides and the front that will greatly reduce the number of 4+ saves he gets. Unless he's running that knight along the table edge you can make where to put his 4+ save a difficult choice. I'm going to say this again, I'm not sold that this is the answer to any problem. But to dismiss it as 9, S9 shot only does 1 hull point, that's not doing anything productive. Hell, if 9, S9 shots can only do 1 hull point to a knight then there's no reason to play 40K anymore.
|
|
|
Post by gman25639 on Mar 1, 2014 23:41:12 GMT
Holy cow this is becoming quite the debate... anyway I agree with yoritomo, should be good against knights although it would mean tailoring lists specifically to deal with them.
|
|
|
Post by Raven on Mar 1, 2014 23:58:17 GMT
I'm not convinced HVC spam can beat Knights, but even if it could you've drastically reduced your damage output against every other opponent.
|
|
|
Post by gigasnail on Mar 1, 2014 23:59:56 GMT
it's not really much of a debate. it's a bad option for an all-comers list, and it's a bad option for tailoring to snipe a knight.
yeah more like 2 pens and a glance. still less than 2 HP. my mistake. you will most likely shoot your entire army at this for most of the game only maybe kill it by turn 4, assuming he never kills any of your units and just sits there letting you get flank shots on him.
only one side is getting the 4+, sure. but he's not going to just waltz his big stompy robot of doom out into the open for you to get flank/rear shots on him. what are you going to do when he just plops it on a skyshield? what are you going to do when he's getting a 4+ cover save from standing behind a small ruin? assuming the 4+ in most cases is probably a good idea.
the HVC is a bad weapon. it has a low rate of fire. its accuracy is somewhat improved (as you guys noted) by shooting at something huge. but its low rate of fire, bad AP, and having to sacrifice better (though shorter ranged) weapons to use it means: it's still bad.
|
|
|
Post by WestRider on Mar 2, 2014 0:28:25 GMT
Let's also talk cost here. The cheapest way I can see to pick up a HVC is either on a Fex or a Harpy, 140 Points either way. So you guys are talking about spending 1200+ Points to pitch 3" Blasts at a 370-some Point Knight in order to bring it down in 3-4 Turns. That's a horrible return on investment for 40K. If you're dumping 3-4 times the Points Value at something, you should be dropping it in a Turn, or close to it.
By comparison, IG Heavy Weapons Squads are paying 35 Points per Lascannon, all told, and SM Dev Squads are just a hair over that. Both can pay a pretty minor tax to Twin-Link a significant number of those, too, and potentially have ways to mitigate or ignore Cover.
IG investing those same 1260 Points into Lascannon get 36 of them. That comes very close to dropping a Knight in a single Turn on average, even if they're all in the front Arc, lacking accuracy buffs, and dealing with the Ion Shield.
Heck, forget the Knight, let's just look at Wave Serpents. I seem to remember someone calculating about a 75% chance of a BS3 Small Blast hitting a Wave Serpent, so 12 shots (almost 1700 Points) gives us 9 Hits, 2 Glances/4 Pens (most of which are probably dropped to Glances by the Shield), half of those are probably getting bounced by Cover (Holofield+Jink, Ruins or Flat Out make this even harder), just barely giving us enough damage to Wreck a 135 Point Transport.
Or staying within our own Codex, look at Hive Guard. 1260 Points gives us about 23 of them, 46 shots, 23 Hits. Assuming half are in the side, but dealing with the Shield, half are on the front without the Shield gives us about 2 Glances/4 Pens on the Side (half of which will be stopped by the Shield, so 1/2) and 2 Glances/2 Pens on the front, for 7 HP even discounting the chance of picking up extra HP from an explosion.
|
|
|
Post by coredump on Mar 2, 2014 0:35:47 GMT
Once per unit? If you have 3 of them in a unit, then that's 3 shots. 3 S9 blasts can bust vehicles or infantry pretty well. And to answer the question, here is an example: I have a tendency to have to deal with a captain with command squad in a rhino that beeline up the table and make a nuisance of themselves, so busting the rhino keeps their movement in check and let's me deal with them at my leisure. 3 shots, lets say 2 hit, that means 1.33 pens, so .44 immob/explode. So if you take about 900pts worth of fexes, you have a decent chance to stop a 35pt rhino. Yay.... The HVC is not a very good gun. Its biggest problem, however, is what we are putting it on. It is not as good as a lascannon, but we are paying 135pts per shot, or over 200 pts per shot from a flyrant. People have been talking about 9 shots, and how we can get side shots from a flyrant. So... 2 flyrants and 7 fexes, is a *minimum* of 1375 pts. Which will let us do about 2 HP per turn on a 370pt model. Yay. Flyrant with HVC on side: 1 shot, .66 hits, .44 G/P, about .55 HP removed. (taking into account possible Explode results) Flyrant with single TLDev: 6 shots, 5.333 hits, .888 HP removed (So with two TLdev: 1.77) Flyrant with EGrub: 1 shot, 1 hit, .888 HP removed. (taking into account possible Explode results)
|
|
|
Post by gman25639 on Mar 2, 2014 6:50:39 GMT
Hmm... math hammer has a point. So HVC Spam is a bad idea. I am still running one on my tyrant and no one can tell me otherwise! Lol. I also use swarmlord so I guess I am just lucky with (what are believed to be) subpar units...
|
|
|
Post by gigasnail on Mar 2, 2014 6:53:27 GMT
shine on, you crazy diamond.
|
|
|
Post by coredump on Mar 2, 2014 7:45:37 GMT
Hmm... math hammer has a point. So HVC Spam is a bad idea. I am still running one on my tyrant and no one can tell me otherwise! Lol. I also use swarmlord so I guess I am just lucky with (what are believed to be) subpar units... Hey, play what you want, play what you have fun with. No one is saying anything different. We just don't want you fooling yourself about what its potential is, or isn't. We all run sub-optimal units at one point or another.
|
|
|
Post by tyrantjohnny on Mar 2, 2014 9:50:44 GMT
I've run a Heavy Venom Canon on a walking Tyrant and found it more useful than I'd expected. I wouldn't say it was optimal, but it's decent. I don't think spamming them is very viable, however. One of the main problem with the majority of shooting options Tyranids have (not whining here, I'm very much enjoying my Nids) is that they perform poorly in their secondary roles. The Heavy Venom Canon is a good example of this. It's primarily an anti-tank weapon, being one of the few long ranged high strength options we have access to. Ostensibly it's secondary function is anti-infantry. However, it's just pretty awful at this role. Small blasts, especially single small blasts on such expensive guns, are just not effective ways to kill infantry unless they are fired in mass. At best you're likely to clip 2 models, and even then it's only AP4, so the models you're reliably threatening aren't really worth firing such an expensive gun at. It's similar with many of our guns. Impaler cannons are great at taking out AV up to 12, and event decent at glancing AV13s, but when you've run out of these targets the gun loses out on it's effectivness. Secondary targets are either Monstrous Creatures, most of which will be getting a 3+ or better save against them, or infantry with a 4+ save or worse in cover, against whom you'll likely only kill 2 or 3 even with a full unit of Hive Guard. The Rupture Canon has the same problem. If you've no Armoured targets to fire at it sucks against infantry and MCs for the same reasons. Take a look at Deathspitters and you'll see a similar trend. Other armies are able to spam ranged weapons like this because they can fulfil multiple purposes cost effectively. Spamming lascanons deals with transports, battle tanks, MCs, and heavy infantry. Spamming Missiles does the same for cheaper. Spamming s7 AP4 weapons with high rates of fire deals with transports and most other things through high strength volume of fire. There are seriously few ranged weapons in the Tyranid codex that can play the multi use spam game. Our guns are often good (ish) at one thing and then really rather poor at everything else. The exception are Brainleech Devourers, which are incredibly popular I suspect for these reasons. That was a long post. Hope it explains why I don't think HVC spam is viable without just telling you it's not a good idea Cheers Johnny
|
|
|
Post by Hive Bahamut on Mar 2, 2014 23:14:18 GMT
I find it hard to see a splash of venomous liquid anything but a blast, but yes I think it would do wonders going back to double tap.
My roomie and I just had this discussion the other night. He was looking through the book and asked why I never took the S9 gun at 36". He couldn't get past how the tradeoff for AP damage was the blast meaning you can hit 2 tanks. That is no good. It will never hit 2 tanks.
Also I mentioned that a marine with a Lascannon is what? 14+20? Whereas yes our MC are all usually 150ish + and they still get armour saves. It just is a bad weapon still. Getting closer, but still bad.
|
|
|
Post by WestRider on Mar 2, 2014 23:22:08 GMT
I find it hard to see a splash of venomous liquid anything but a blast, but yes I think it would do wonders going back to double tap. It's not liquid. The Venom has been formed somehow into crystal shards. I believe they're also electrically charged and then fired like a Railgun.
|
|
|
Post by gigasnail on Mar 2, 2014 23:24:04 GMT
yeah it's a railgun that fires explosive shells. it should be S9 AP2, but OH NO. we can't have nice things.
|
|