The uses of Autocannons and Heavy Bolters?

[albertsevil]

Good morning all,

Can somebody please explain the uses and positive points of Autocannons (AC) and Heavy Bolters (HB)?
I run Death Guard (C:CSM) and loyalist (C:SM) lists and have never quite managed to use the AC or HB effectively.

In my opinion the missile launcher (ML) is a much better more versatile weapon for marine squads especially as it is the same points cost. The HB's 3 St5 shots simply aren't worth loosing the chance to shoot frag or krak.

As for chaos terminators, the AC is more expensive than other options such as the Heavy Flamer (HF) and almost requires sitting back and firing at the enemy, whereas deepstriking with a HF (and combi-weapons for chaos termis) allows for a much more aggressive role and potentially a lot more wounds, after all the AC is only 2 shots.

The strength of the AC is a bonus but its armour penetration is medium and somewhat invalidates it's use against the toughest threats who almost always seem to have good saves. While I know that even 2+ saves can be failed it simply seems like the AC is far too many points to be used reliably for this role.

I can see the AC being useful to take out light vehicles. But if i am fielding a dreadnought i'd rather have an assault cannon, plasma cannon or mulit-melta for simple versatility and greater stopping power.

I'd love to hear your thoughts - am I just using everything wrong? It seems everyone is talking about things like the twin AC dreadnought and i'd love to understand their enthusiasm.

Thanks, and good gaming to all

Albertsevil

[Nikephoros]

Autocannons are one of the best guns in the game. It's good at taking out light vehicles as well as monstrous creatures. Heavy bolter is good at neither, and doesn't have a rate of fire high enough to really be considered good at anti-infantry.

The twin AC dread is an amazing piece because it has 4 str7 long range shots with re-rolls to hit. Point for point, its difficult to get that much high strength reliable firepower out of a single unit. In the day and age of mech armies you need reliable long range guns capable of de-meching your opponent. One krak missle shot or volley from an assault cannon does not compare to 4 str7 re-roll to hit shots when shooting at a Rhino.

[Tynskel]

do not be fooled.

Just because a weapon has a long range characteristic does not means that it has to be used for long range. You can still teleport in close and fire a Reaper Autocannon. This is something that makes me bonk my head against a wall: Terminators are NOT long range fighters. Never have been, and should never be used that way--- They all carry power weapons/fists, have 2 attacks, an invulnerable save, and 2+ armor. They can Assault while firing rapidfire/heavy weapons: It should be OBVIOUS how to use them.

Usually, I can tell if my opponent is not so bright at tactics--- they'll put their terminators in the back lines.

It really isn't difficult:
Hv Bolter is an Anti-Infantry Weapon
Autocannon is a light anti-armor/heavy infantry weapon
Missile Launcher is anti-medium-light armor/ light infantry weapon.

They all have their advantages and disadvantages...

I would compare the str vs target--- you can probably figure out what they excel at.

[henrythesecond]

I love my dual twin-linked Dread, or 'Rifleman'.

I have 2 main uses for him.

The first is to stand out in the open and engage enemy armour in a stand-up gunfight. My plan doesn't hinge on him destroying all that much (though he more or less makes his points back in most battles), but it's amazing how much fire he will draw off my troop transports, giving me a decent amount of freedom of movement for a turn or two.

The second is to stick him behind some substantial cover in the centre of my deployment zone. From here, he offers overwatch on oblique fire lanes across either side of the table. Even with just 6" of movement to change shooting positions, it's amazing how many opponents fail to factor in the danger until he's hit home with his big cannons.

So that's why I take my Rifleman more often than not.

Cheers.

[albertsevil]

Thanks for the replies. Makes a little more sense now about the AC but still struggle to justify the use of HBs. Maybe it's just my style of play that has made the weapons ineffective so far. I'll go away and experiment, especially with the 'rifleman' dread idea.

However the use of a (reaper) AC on my chaos termis will change their role from throw away deepstriking units to more expensive squads and i'll have to figure out how to effectively use them in a rhino-rush force. Land them near an objective and hold on?

Have people used chaos havoc squads with ACs? Any success? Though as my regular opponent is daemons i still think the 4xplasma-gun havocs rule the roost.

I believe the Tau missile pods are the same stats as ACs (though less range?) i'll crack out my Tau and change the load outs, lets see if I can't get those suits to pop some transports. Should breath new life into a tired army.

Thanks again, and good gaming to all

Ryan

[DCompanyChris]

My feeling on the heavy bolter is that it needs to be included in a unit which engages enemy infantry as its primary role. I like to include one with a tactical squad that has a plasmagun. This unit becomes a home base unit that finds a spot in my deployment zone, and then spends the game shooting at enemy infantry.

The other way I'll run the heavy bolter is in a devastator squad. Three heavy bolters and a lascannon gives you two small units, each with a job. Put the sgt with the lascannon and that unit becomes a very effective vehicle, IC, or MC sniper, especially in cover, and that gives you a combat squad with three heavy bolters to engage infantryand still has a fair chance for knocking out lighter (AV10 or 11) transports.

I don't path mathhammer, or figure out the odds, but with as many ork players as I get to play against locally, this unit is gold time after time.

[Xas]

for the HB I have to agree with you. At it's current point cost it is worthless (can very well be worth the points if not the slot in space wolve armies!).

The AC however I like and use whenever possible (IG/CSM, dont play loyalist SM).

What I like about it:
Range 48 (means unlike the heavy bolter you can use them as long-range anti-infantry while sitting back on your home-line).

against av12 and bellow it is better as you have twice as many shots as the missile launcher.
against av12 you get 1/6 pens and 1/6 glances per hit while a missile gets 2/6 pens and 1/6 glances but only has half as many shots (meaning you statistically get 1/6 glances less per hitting volley).
against av10 and 11 it is even better for the AC.

against infantry both of them wound on 2+. with long range weapons it is hard for a good enemy not to get cover so you are (on your average meq targets) either haveing 2 wounds that are saved on 3+ or one that is saved on 4+ (cover). 2/3 deads from ac is better than 1/2 dead from missile. for me the frag is never an option as my other templates (leman russ/griffin/manticore for the IG and devilers, plasma cannons and rhino missiles) are enough to make my oponent spread out so you only hit 1 with the small blast.


the one thing I see missile launchers as win over AC is against monstrous creatures (which are hard pressed to get cover and usually have a 3+save that the ML ignores as well as a toughness value 6/8 that is high enough for the s8 to matter!) and for flank shots into leman russ if you have two squads in oposing corners.


as for RAC on chaos terminators it is a very flexible weapon. you can either make really cheap squads of 3 with just the RAC (and maybe one chainfist and/or combi weapons for the other two termis) and deepstrike behind enemies, firing into rears and gibbing some tank if you are getting ignored in melee. this has worked well (if you dont need the elite slots) for me basically since the current dex came out. compared to common suicide melta-termis you are paying a bit of a premium but unlike them you are not useless after your first turn of shooting and so you oponent has to do something about them even if 3 cheap termis dont feel worth the effort (especially as allmost no single exists that can reliably take them out within the apropriate price-range; if he uses his plasma-command squad it is a win, if his las-plas combat squad fails to kill the RAC it is also a win and quite likely with only 2-3 shots 3+,2+,5-).

another use is on big squads that walk it towards the oponent so you can pump out some supressive fire. a 10 termi brick with 2 RAC might not be the most powerfull shooting squad but it can pick off transports while it advances. this was better last edition were you couldnt run instead but is still worthwhile (especially with tzeentchian 4++ in the open for faster movement or nurgle t5 and 4+ cover in terrain).

[Old_Paladin]

The problem with the heavy bolter is simply that is really starting to show it's age.
It was a weapon made with 3rd and 4th ed. rules in mind, and it's pricing hasn't quite caught-up to 5th yet.

When cover was hard to get, AP:4 was alot better on a high ROF weapon. Against tau, imperial grenadiers, Inquisitorial Stormtroopers, Orks or 'Nids, they could earn back their points in a turn or two.
Then you have to remember that missiles and plasma cannons did partials, so might do very few hits.

Now, a missile can catch more targets and even if you could have gone through an armour save targets will often get cover anyways.

[MarshalAdamar]

It took me a while to warm up to auto cannons but now I really like them. The assault cannon is superior to the AC at its range of 24” and there in lies the rub.

The autocannons can engage a target at 48” meaning that almost no where on your opponent’s side of the board is safe. I stick mine in cover on the far side of one edge (as long as my opponent doesn’t have out flanking units. That way my opponent has to expend long rage fire power to get at them or sent valuable resources to the far reaches to silence the guns and thus drawing them away from my main force.

The auto cannon is only S6 so with out getting a rend it’s not as good at taking out light vehicles as the auto cannon.

Havocs with 4 autocannons are AWESOME for MC removal. And you can put them WAY back in the back corner and still reach out and touch someone. They’re safe (as they can be and they lay down a punishing 8 S7 shots a turn VS the same with missile launchers laying down only 4. The AP 3 from the krak missile is great, and if you face a lot of daemons with iron hide it might be the way to go.

As for heavy bolters. I’m not as big a fan of the C: SM devastators as I am of the Long fangs. With them you can get 5 heavy bolters on the CHEAP, put them in a razor back for 40 points and you another Heavy bolter, this one twin linked. That’s 18 S5 shots a turn for around 150pts!

And that is a troop mower unit

[Rixnor]

ACs rock, statistically they are better than a missile launcher at stopping AV11 transports (but it's been a while since I did the math).

HBs are horrible, and missile launchers are always a better choice. It's a bummer because I believe they fill the role of squad automatic fire that most Real Life armies depend on. Since 5th edition came out I have been of the opinion that they should have two different stat lines, Assault 2 at 24 inches & Heavy 4 at 36 inches. This would make them the only heavy weapon choice that can be mobile and would actually be a reason for Tactical squads to take them.

The problem is that in order to change them they would have to update every codex: IG, SM, BA, SW, CSM, I'm sure there are more. It was much easier to update meltas and plasmas because they just had to update the rules in the BRB with the new edition and not the individual codex's.

Rix

[RocketRollRebel]

The problem with the heavy bolter is simply that is really starting to show it's age.
It was a weapon made with 3rd and 4th ed. rules in mind, and it's pricing hasn't quite caught-up to 5th yet.

When cover was hard to get, AP:4 was alot better on a high ROF weapon. Against tau, imperial grenadiers, Inquisitorial Stormtroopers, Orks or 'Nids, they could earn back their points in a turn or two.
Then you have to remember that missiles and plasma cannons did partials, so might do very few hits.

Now, a missile can catch more targets and even if you could have gone through an armour save targets will often get cover anyways.

I like this theory. I used to run heavy bolter/plasma squads all the time in my IG lists in 4th ed but since 5th and the new dex I haven't touched them really. Even on my vehicles. Auto cannon is king in my IG army these days.

[Xas]

HBs are horrible, and missile launchers are always a better choice. It's a bummer because I believe they fill the role of squad automatic fire that most Real Life armies depend on. Since 5th edition came out I have been of the opinion that they should have two different stat lines, Assault 2 at 24 inches & Heavy 4 at 36 inches. This would make them the only heavy weapon choice that can be mobile and would actually be a reason for Tactical squads to take them.


I think you are thinking to small scale.

Afaik there is two ways to "fix" the infantry based heavy bolter.

the first way is the way of the space wolves. Make them replace the normal boltgun on heavy support marins (for an automatic +5pts/model increase but also decreasing the price for the 4 upgradable heavy weapons) or make them a powerfull heavy 6 for the more expensive CSM cost (iirc +15 pts).

at first this might seam OP but if you take into account that they take a heav support and can only every engage infantry and cardboard vehicles it evens out. additionally they are staitonary and infantry so vulnerable to all sorts of long range fire as well as flanking maneuvres.