Grav Cannon, Oh Myyyy!

[Path Walker]

I wouldn't disagrees but the high number of shots is the only thing that stops Grav Guns being utterly useless and unusable against other things.

You just came up against a list designed to beat lists like yours, its a hard counter, if you get enough of them in a game then the meta becomes difficult to predict and people will hopefully move towards a more balanced army in the hope of avoiding unwinnable scenarios.

[CoffeeGrunt]

It's like if I took 9 Wyverns. Against Green Tide, it's gunna slaughter. Against Nidzilla, it's gunna be laughable. Grav would actually be the other way around, but still.

[Charon]

Still think that since it's so readily available and that since it's so inexpensive for what it does, that changing the grav weaponry profile is a decent enough idea. Grav cannon: Salvo 2/3; Grav Gun: Salvo 1/2.

Even if we all agree (which we do not) I doen't change a thing.

[Fueldrop]

At some point I want to run a Harlequin list against a Grav-spam skyhammer list. You know, just to drink in their tears like they do to everyone else.

Seriously though, even against a guard blob the sheer number of shots from grav-spam is considerable and the rerolls are just overkill. Add in its excellent AV capacity and you have a very powerful weapon, very easily spammed.

[Reldane]

In my Opinion Grav weapons high light two inherent flaw with a lot of the newer codexs: that with each new release there must be a new gun, and that there should be guns that mitigate/get better with the more points your opponent spends. Grav Weapons are examples of both of these. If a player pays points for models to get a better armour save, not only are those points wasted (such as Mark of Nurgle and bikes into poison) but they actually benefit the player with grav weapons.

having said that I don't feel that the Grav Guns are particularly strong even on something relentless, I think the problems only come in for the Grav Cannon and amp combination, and lets be honest if the Grav cannons where not so good we would not see Grav Centurians in ever single space marine army (though I do like the devistator centurians, they are everything that "shooty" terminators have not been... ever)

[CoffeeGrunt]

In my Opinion Grav weapons high light two inherent flaw with a lot of the newer codexs: that with each new release there must be a new gun, and that there should be guns that mitigate/get better with the more points your opponent spends. Grav Weapons are examples of both of these. If a player pays points for models to get a better armour save, not only are those points wasted (such as Mark of Nurgle and bikes into poison) but they actually benefit the player with grav weapons.

You could make the same claim for Poison, Fleshbane or Sniper with regards to Toughness, though. The Armour Save thing is a fair point, though.

Seriously though, even against a guard blob the sheer number of shots from grav-spam is considerable and the rerolls are just overkill. Add in its excellent AV capacity and you have a very powerful weapon, very easily spammed.

It costs 7x what a Guardman does, or 12x a Conscript. There's much better and scarier things to those guys than a handful of Grav Cannons. :P

[Reldane]

You could make the same claim for Poison, Fleshbane or Sniper with regards to Toughness, though. The Armour Save thing is a fair point, though.

mostly I do, its not that I don't feel there should be counters to good armour saves, or high toughness but at a design level I find it irritating when one side has payed for something better and it makes literally no difference. on a character these things are probably fine, but when a whole unit or army is ignoring the others toughness, save or whatever I think there is a problem. Fortunately the biggest offender for that dark eldar suffer from other problems.

It costs 7x what a Guardman does, or 12x a Conscript. There's much better and scarier things to those guys than a handful of Grav Cannons. :P

I was myself going to make a similar comment, but the maths is actually fairly in favour of grav cannons. they still inflict a reasonable number of wounds, sure there are better weapons for the points spent on grav, but though seer weight of fire a grav cannon and amp (1.85 wounds) will out perform a heavy bolter (1.67 wounds) so it isn't as wasted as you might think.

[Path Walker]

mostly I do, its not that I don't feel there should be counters to good armour saves, or high toughness but at a design level I find it irritating when one side has payed for something better and it makes literally no difference. on a character these things are probably fine, but when a whole unit or army is ignoring the others toughness, save or whatever I think there is a problem. Fortunately the biggest offender for that dark eldar suffer from other problems.




I was myself going to make a similar comment, but the maths is actually fairly in favour of grav cannons. they still inflict a reasonable number of wounds, sure there are better weapons for the points spent on grav, but though seer weight of fire a grav cannon and amp (1.85 wounds) will out perform a heavy bolter (1.67 wounds) so it isn't as wasted as you might think.

The Heavy Bolter is a lot less points than a Grav Cannon and Amp, so yes, it can still hurt the conscripts, you're paying those extra points for 0.18 wounds. For the price of 3 Grav Cannon Devestators, you get 6 with Heavy Bolters (and change, I couldn't be bothered to find the LCD), so for the points, you're doing (using youre calculations, not checked them) 5.55 Wounds with the Gravs and 10.02 Wounds with the Heavy Bolters.

[Fueldrop]

mostly I do, its not that I don't feel there should be counters to good armour saves, or high toughness but at a design level I find it irritating when one side has payed for something better and it makes literally no difference. on a character these things are probably fine, but when a whole unit or army is ignoring the others toughness, save or whatever I think there is a problem. Fortunately the biggest offender for that dark eldar suffer from other problems.

The real problem isn't that Grav Cannons are good against high toughness foes, or good against heavily armoured foes... it's that they're good against both at the same time, while putting out tons of shots and rerolling failed wounds AND being good against vehicles. Poisoned weapons generally have lousy AP, mediocre rates of fire, and are useless against vehicles and GMCs. Fleshbane likewise generally wounds really well, but isn't going through armour very well and is rarely on a weapon that's good against vehicles (the one exception, wychblades, was nerfed hard vs vehicles in 6th to the point that they're almost worthless against them).

Being good at everything, plus access to drop pods that let them get to where they need to be without any chance of mishap or being shot down, is really why Grav weapons are a problem. Even their price isn't an issue since SM can get 500+ points of free transports in the Gladius detachment which frees up points for expensive toys.

[Reldane]

most certainly, Grav weapons are very pricey. my point wasn't that it was the most efficient way to kill guardsmen, just that the grav cannon is all-round a very strong weapon, it does anti heavy infantry exceptionally well, anti tank well and is still passable at anti light infantry. its only real weakness is in the salvo rule and how utterly pants salvo is. if you can ignore Salvo (ie relentless) the grav cannon becomes the most appealing weapon upgrade.