IG hull weapons

[superhappyrobot]

I almost always pick heavy flamers as my hull weapons because I feel that will be the best weapon to put wounds on any enemy unit that gets that close and the vehicle survives, more so than the heavy bolter or lascannon. I typically count on using the main gun throughout the battle and nothing else, including sponsons. I even put heavy flamers on long range tanks/artillery pieces.

Thoughts? Would a heavy bolter be a better choice for, say, a basilisk or a hydra?

[Denzark]

I will almost always take sponsons - for ablative 'wounds' if nothing else. I rarely take HF as I don't like the enemy to be this close. If they are within 8" template range in my turn they are in charge range of AV10-11 rear armour, their turn.

[windspear]

I will almost always take sponsons - for ablative 'wounds' if nothing else. I rarely take HF as I don't like the enemy to be this close. If they are within 8" template range in my turn they are in charge range of AV10-11 rear armour, their turn.

I think that's his point.

The heavy flamer is a good weapon to lay down some hurt on an infantry block, which is one of the few units you might be able to shoot enough of to force a morale check on if your about to be trapped in close combat by it.. A big monster that close isn't going to be worried about your sponsons, and one melta hit is unlikely to faze a big gribbly.

I think you've made a good choice. I'm planning to outfit any new chimeras I get with at least one heavy flamer in their loadout.

[Iceman]

I agree with windspear. After playing a number of games as IG I am starting to use more and more heavy flamers instead of heavy bolters (at least on my Chimeras). Flamers have the advantage of always getting a hit as well as ignoring cover saves.

I literally never use sponsons because:
a) They cost too much. I prefer to save the points and buy more units. I believe that IG are more about quantity than quality.
b) I find it necessary to move my tanks every turn in order to minimize getting assaulted by deep-striking, outflanking, etc, units. That means I can't use the sponson weapons anyway.

I sometimes upgrade the hull mounted weapon to a lascannon on my Leman Russes to improve their vehicle killing ability but only if I have small amounts of points left over.

[Astynax]

Agreed w Iceman & windspear as well. You want to be moving most of the time even with battletanks to push the enemy and use them as cover for your softer vehicles and troops. As a result, you'll be able to fire only 1 heavy weapon most of the time. 1 for long ranged support, the other if they get too close so the heavy flamer is amazing for this.

As well, I almost never take sponsons either as they cost too much and you shouldn't stay stationary in order to fire everything. If you want long range fire support, take bassies, medusas & such. LRBTs are to move up with the army which means they can only fire the big gun + 1 other anyways.

[SotonShades]

On my Russes I tend to take a mixture of Lasconnons and Heavy Bolters as my hull weapons, usually in a ratio of about 1:2. I almost always take HB sponsons as well because I like having the option of firing them. This gives the Las armed russes a better chance of dealing with enemy infantry who are getting too close (and by too close I mean at around 24", not in assault range), and for the HB armed tanks it give me a back up for when the hull HB goes down.

I agree with the three previous posters about keeping your tanks moving to help protect them in assault, but the number of times I've decided not to move, put a battle cannon on the nearest squad and then hosed them with 9 HB shots, leaving nothing dangerous enough to realisticly threaten my tanks, has made the sponsons worth it. I tend to run a Russ heavy list, often 6 in a 1500 point game. In this case I've got enough tanks to cover most of the board to stop any units getting too lose to them. I've not had a problem with outflankers or deep striking units really. 6 Russes in 1500 points makes for a small army, so I can usually keep far enough from the table edges that I get at least a turn to shoot at them if I feel they are a threat. Similarly for Deep Striking units (though harder to defend againt) they tend to at most knock out a single tank, giving me usually at least 3 that can stop them making any further head way.

The only problem I've had with this kind of tactical approach is against armies with a lot of deep striking units, such as Deamons (and I'd imagine Blood Angels as well, but haven't played against them with my Guard yet). That said, I still have my infantry and usually a Vendetta buzzing around as well as the tanks to deal with those threats.

[RocketRollRebel]

I take nothing but Heavy Flamers on my Chimera style tanks and about half of my russ's. In 4th I was all about the heavy bolter but have since switched over. Sure the heavy bolter has some range but you don't hit or kill much with it. Yeah that tank is in trouble when a bunch of marines or boyz are in heavy flamer range but you have much better odds of killing more of them with the heavy flamer than you are going to with the heavy bolter at that point. No BS and the template make it better IMO.

[Lord Azaghul]

Chimera: Multilaser/ Heavy Flamer
Basilisk: Heavy Flamer
Demolisher: Heavy flamer/ plasma sponsons
Battle cannon: Lascannon.

The HF is just so useful for so much in the IG.
Even my 10man squads I field with just flamers (platoon), as it generates more 'hits' and 'wounds' then any other special weapon, especially for 5 points!

[SotonShades]

I would agree with you Lord Azaghul, but that's usually only in a single turn. Over a game (unless you are exceptionally lucky) you will get one shot with a flamer before being assaulted and lets face it, Guardsmen don't do that well in combat, at least not usually. I have had a squad tear down a squad of 10 Khorne Bexerkers, but I'm pretty certain that's the exception rather than the norm...

Assuming a squad survives a game you should usually get as many hits with a lasgun as you do with a flamer. The advantage of the Flamer being it's higher strength rather than the number of hits it gets. On the down side, getting the flamer into range limits the number of shots you are getting with the rest of your squad's lasguns.

Of course I'm getting off topic, but I think the principal holds true for tanks. You may get one, possibly two shots with your Heavy Flamer getting 3 or four wounds each, but I'd put money on getting more hits and wounds from my Heavy Bolter over the course of a game, and I know I will do more damage to more vehicles with the Lascannon.

[windspear]

I'm planning on running my next several chimera builds with Heavy flamer turret and lascannon hull. I run the chimeras up to deliver troops, so the flamer is likely to see action,

My Russ were run with the 3x heavy bolter loadout for 9 dice of S5 goodness, but they were made in 4th, and any I get in 5th are probably going to be sponsonless, or have flamers, since the hull and the turret are the only things shooting in any significant way most of the time.