The other Heavy Meat


Well it should be pretty obvious what my favorite Heavy Support choice is from the mighty tome of Chaos. Obliterators are diverse, powerful, hideable, teleportable, and worth every point. But they are not the only HVY SPRT choice. I was talking to a friend who is considering getting into the hobby and he asked me why take Obliterators compared to the Havocs. And I replied in my best comic book guy impersination, Obliterators are the best Hvy Sprt choice ever! I still stand by that but lets look at some of the other heavies. Havocs!! - to devastate, to create ruinous damage. Ahh how appropriate!


I hate to say it but I think the best place for this heavy is in a fluff army. Death Guard immediately comes to mind since you can take special weapons as well as Heavy Weapons. In fact, this is about the only combo or build that I think would be worth it in a competitive game. 4 meltas in a minimum squad of Kamakazi chaos marines with a rhino to get them to the Land Raider full of Hammer Termies. However, I do this with 5 meltas in a outflanking squad of chosen for just another 3 pts per model.

The squad can start to get expensive if you take 4 lascannons and 10 chaos marines at 290 pts. Especially marines who arent fearless or cant regroup if they fall back below half strength. And thats without a rhino. A rhino? Yeah, if you can take a rhino for 35pts, you should. Use it somewhere else! As a empty decoy along side full rhinos, or as mobile cover. And dont you EVER take a champion in a havoc squad. EVER! If you do and I find out about it, I will tell Abaddon on you!


4 lascannons is taking the expensive extreme but if you want to mix in other weapons you start to loss some punching power. A mix of anti tank and anti infantry would reduce the effectivness your unit has. It is best to try and decide what the unit will be used for before the game. In a well balanced army, a Chaos Lord will have the ability to deal with both armour and mobs of infantry, but not necessarily with the same unit. Im not calling anyone out if you mix your havocs, Im just saying that I think they can only really fill one roll.


Death to the False Emperor!!!!!!!!!!!!

12 comments:

eriochrome said...

Havocs and Spacemarine devastators are pretty much in the same boat of not use. While space marines lack oblits, the standard mech lists all benefit from using HS slots on other tanks to reduce the fire on the rhinos. Drop pod marines are not likely to use devastators either since anything not pod mounted needs to fill that after dropping movement gap.

Mitch said...

If i played Chaos, I would use Autocannons in havocs, and have my troops take duel meltaguns! :)

Mitch
http://ottawagamer.blogspot.com/

Khornatedemon said...

Back when they could get tank hunter autocannon havoks were one of the best units in the game. These days I'm just not sold on static heavy weapons. Lack of mobility kills units these days. If I was to use havoks with heavy weapons it would probably be in 5 man squads with 2 heavy weapons shooting out of the top of their rhino. Kinda like a chaos razorback. Otherwise the special weapon version is good if you full on elites.

HuronBH said...

I have so say, the 4 ML havoc squad is pretty versital as is the 20 man havoc squad with 4 meltas or flamers lead by an Aspiring with Powerfist.

Also remember that by taking an Aspiring you are getting +1 Ld and options for combi weapons.

Black Matt said...

Huron,
I think it is to much of a point sink! Those points could be spent on Chaos Spawns, the best unit in the game!

Ad Astra said...

Shhh... quiet on my spawn spam list!

Since they don't take up a slot in the chart- 1850 point list. HQ: Cheapie lord, 2 chaos marine squads with las cannons and the rest of the points on spawns...

TIDE OF SPAWN!!!

Black Matt said...

I cant believe you gave it up. I still think its a cool idea!!!!

TheKing Elessar said...

Hah! That Spawn Swarm would indeed be fun to use...

Personally, I thought Stelek's idea of 2 Melta/2 Flamer very nice, but KhornateDaemon's suggestion above is probably how I would run them...if ever. 2 Autocannons, probably, for light anti-tank. 2 Missile Launchers wouldn't be bad either.

Nagamo said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Nagamo said...

What about the other "other heavy meet"? I´m still working on my csm army, ´cause the way my army performes on the table isn´t the way a want to play. Maybe I´m spoiled by my sword wind eldar, but I really miss the mobility with chaos. Lash gives me some kind of passive mobility, but I would offer my right hand to the chaos gods to have access to Baal Predators for stopping enemy transports early on and contest objectives lategame. So what do you guys think of chaos Predators? auto-las combination doesn´t sound to bad if you aks me...

TheKing Elessar said...

I'm currently experimenting with 3 twin-Las, no sponson, possessed Preds. It's going okay. Inferior to Vindis, or Oblits, but okay.

Bap said...

Back to the havocs : I am using them with 4 missile launcher. My usual tactic is to let them fire at armoured vehicles the first 3 turns more or less.
Then some of my deep striking units arrive : I like to force the opponent to assault my kamikaze termies that of course die... leaving a compact amount of foes in range of my frag missiles.