Topic: Marine Dreadnaught weapons help

[Crimsonsphinx]

Hi Everyone.

I am confused as to the effectiveness of the rifleman design.  For those who don't know, this is a marine dread with a pair of twinlinked autocannon, giving it 4  s7 shots at reasonably high range.

For less points, you can field a dread with an assault cannon and a powefist.  For the same [IIRC], you can field a an assault cannon and a twinlinked autocannon should you so desire.

My question is why would you use an rifleman?  The assault cannon is a miles better piece of kit.  4 shots is better than 2, even if it is twin linked, and with rending can penetrate better armour values, up to the highest in the game and it is much more lethal to infantry.  So the only thing going for this design is that it is reliably able to put 3-4 hits on rhinos at long range.  At the expense of being good against heavy tanks and losing your combat arm.

[rufus sparkfire]

I wasn't too impressed by the double-autocannon dreadnought either, and this was the S8 grey knight one! I guess people like it for the range and because it's good at killing very light vehicles (transports, which are common).

I feel I get a lot more value out of my psycannon/powerfist/incinerator dreadnought, though it does need to be set down near the enemy by a storm raven for maximum effect. I enjoy punching tanks.

Even the weaker assault cannon you're stuck with is probably more generally useful than the double-autocannon. Though maybe you'd want one of each type if you have two dreadnoughts. Depending on what other long-range stuff you have access to.

[Crimsonsphinx]

Thing is Rufus, the assault cannon isn't weaker.  Against pretty much all infantry in the game, both guns wound on 2s, and have ap4, except the assault cannon can rend, making saves worthless.

Against tanks, the assault cannon has one less strength, but rending, so if you roll a 6, your guaranteed to get the same result as an autocannon which also rolled a 6 and have a 2/3rds chance of getting more, up to and including beating armour 14.

Sure the autocannon has longer range, but that is all it really has.  Admittedly it is twice the range, but I only play on a 6x4 board.   If a dread advances on turn 1, provided it was deployed sensibly, the assault cannon should be in range.  Obviously in dawn of war it won't be, but on turn one its dark, and your autocannons range will be reduced considerably.

What this does mean is it will save me a bunch of cash.  I won't need to buy a load of autocannon arms when I buy some dreads. I may still buy one set, but that is it.  Im just not sold on autocannons, as from my experience as a guard and chaos player, they are a poor mans heavy weapon, very similar to heavy bolters.

[rufus sparkfire]

Sorry, I meant it was weaker than my psycannon! But otherwise the same.

Psycannon = best gun in 40K? Maybe!

[Crimsonsphinx]

Sorry, I meant it was weaker than my psycannon! But otherwise the same.

Psycannon = best gun in 40K? Maybe!

Id agree with that.  Considering for most purposes a single psycannon throws out a whole devastator squad of firepower for virtually no points yes.

[McKnight]

2 twinlinked autocannons are a reliable way of shooting transports. An assault cannon and powerfist lacks range and accuracy. And rending is unreliable....

Also, the 24" range sucks, because then the enemy is in range with their melta weapons = dead dreadnought in the next turn.

[Sig]

Agreed with McKnight.

I've got 3 dreads, 1 rifleman, 1 assault/fist and one ironclad. The rifleman sees every game. The assault guy gets about 30% gametime. The ironclad is just for laughs.

When looking at the dreadnought, I'm wondering what slot I'm fitting it in to. When I take a rifleman, it's for light transport and eldar equivalent troop destruction. I don't care how it performs against AV13+ because I have other tools in my list for that. I don't care how it performs in combat because I have other tools for that. The assault cannon dread is hopeless against transports and only average against av 4 troops because of the terrible range, allowing melta to just shred it.

Let's look at the damage output.

4 twinlinked shots at 48''. Str 7 performs better against AV 12 and below (all transports virtually except necrons and land raiders), where rending is utterly worthless. So we'll be shooting from turn one (unless dow), and probably not getting shot at in return. Turn one I have a good chance to knock off a rhino. You have 0 chance.

Once you get in range, assuming he didn't just roll into your range with fast melta and destroy you outright, let's compare again.

4 twin str 7 shots. 4 hits, more likely than not.

AP 10: 1/2 chance to pen, 1/6 chance to glance. 66% chance of a result per hit
AP 11: 1/3 chance to pen, 1/6 chance to glance. 50% chance of a result per hit
AP 12: 1/6 chance to pen, 1/6 chance to glance. 33% chance of a result per hit

4 str 6 rending shots. Going with 3 hits.

AP 10: 1/3 chance to pen, 1/6 chance to glance. 50% chance of a result per hit
AP 11: 1/6 chance to pen, 1/6 chance to glance. 33% chance of a result per hit
AP 12: 1/6 chance to pen, no chance to glance. 17% chance of a result per hit

For its chosen role, it's pretty clear which is better. Another thing to keep in mind, that a regular dread with just a single dread ccw is terrible in cc. He's a tank who wins by attrition, nothing else. He might rip up a tank if it's not moving very fast (but it usually will be) but his 2 attacks or 3 on assault are pretty sad. He's no better than a tactical squad sarge in cc against most infantry! How sad is that! Chaos have an extra attack making them more useful in cc than our dreads. My rifleman can take cc damage just as well as the assault dread, he just can't dish any out. But honestly, against a powerfist, they're both dead. You'll just kill one or two models before he dies with your version.

Bottom line, I wouldn't be paying for the regular dread in order to get any real damage out of him. I have him there to guard the centre of the table and take attacks of opportunity. If he sees a juicy squad of troops without a fist, he'll go in. If a transport gets close, he'll have a go. He helps a tactical squad sit on an objective, and he's very good at that. He's not a bad choice, but the rifleman, at its specialization, is spectacular.

[Crimsonsphinx]

Ive actually done the full maths on this, while I was bored yesterday for my blog.  Here are the relevant numbers picked out of my article 

TLAC                           Chance of Glance        Chance of Pen          Chance of kill
  VS AV 10                              13.88%                    41.66%                13.88%
  VS AV 11                              13.88%                    27.76%                  9.25%
  VS AV 12                              13.88%                    13.88%                  4.44%
  VS AV 13                              13.88%                           0%                      0%
  VS AV 14                                     0%                          0%                      0%

 Assault Cannon               Chance of Glance        Chance of Pen          Chance of kill
  VS AV 10                              11.11%                    22.22%                   7.41%
  VS AV 11                              11.11%                    11.11%                  3.70%
  VS AV 12                                     0%                    11.11%                   3.70%
  VS AV 13                                3.70%                      7.41%                   2.46%
  VS AV 14                                3.70%                      3.70%                   1.23%

Melta over half range   Chance of Glance        Chance of Pen          Chance of kill
  VS AV 10                               11.11%                    44.44%                  24.07%
  VS AV 11                               11.11%                    33.33%                  18.55%
  VS AV 12                               11.11%                   22.22%                   12.96%
  VS AV 13                               11.11%                    11.11%                   7.41%
  VS AV 14                               11.11%                          0%                   1.85%


 Melta under half range   Chance of Glance        Chance of Pen          Chance of kill
  VS AV 10                               1.83%                     64.84%                  33.03%
  VS AV 11                               3.66%                     61.17%                  31.20%
  VS AV 12                               5.49%                     55.68%                  28.76%
  VS AV 13                               7.32%                     48.36%                  25.40%
  VS AV 14                               9.15%                     39.21%                  21.14%

The autocannons performs considerably better than I thought it would do, but you need to give up the second arm to really make it better than the assault cannon.  Of course, a rifleman will be giving up its second arm, but you do lose a lot of utility in the dreadnought design.  Bearing mind these numbers are per shot.  So the autocannon and assault cannon get more shots than the multi melta.  My numbers are on a per bs4 shot basis.