Are Heavy Bolters the best weapon in 6th Edition?
September 12, 2012 in Daily Tips, SCI FI Wargaming, Warhammer 40K by darrell
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Darrell makes the case for Bolters & Heavy Bolters ruling the land and sky in 6h edition 40K.
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“only 5 points” for Space wolf long fangs and sisters yes, vanilla marines pay 15 each, blood angels and imperial guard pay 10, at 10 points they’re probably only slightly more expensive than they’re worth on BS3 guardsmen, about average on bs4 vets and blood angels, but the 60 points for a vanilla devastator squad to kit out with four of them? Nah, if you really want heavy bolters put ‘em in tactical squads were they’re free.
And the Sisters Retributor squad (our version of the Devestators) can make them Rending with the Acts of Faith!
Squad of 5 Sisters w/4 Heavy Bolters is only 80 points!. They tear up light transports and MEQs.
imo, heavy bolters have always been the weapon of choice in 40k, but now with snap fire, they’re just aces. that rule made 6th edition for me
The minute-long unskippable advert for posh womenswear that I had to watch before this video nearly stopped me watching it. And who the hell is watching 40k tactics videos on BoW and then popping out to John Lewis for a posh frock? Mental.
That was one long ass advert! Good job hi-lighting the quality that is the old trusty heavy bolter.
I did some quick mental maths, and I still think 5MLs would come out ahead of 5HBs vs AV11. But I agree HBs just got much much better since they can generally do better anti infantry as well. My personal favourite winner of 6th was GK storm bolters. psybolt ammo is awesome in combination with the volume of fire they can put out. Heavy bolters have better range and AP, but can only snapshot on the move, whereas my GK run and gun at full effect. I’ve also started adding in psyker Inquisitors with Prescience to really make those squads overkill.
The ML is a very marginally better weapon for AV11, the heavy bolter can’t ever touch av12+(unless its the retribution squads with their rending versions)but its a lot more effective against infantry, so you have the choice of essentially a weapon that’s fantastic for killing most light vehicles okay at heavier ones and really quite poor at infantry ( be honest, when was the last time you used frag missiles against anything but swarms?) or a weapon that’s fantastic at killing most infantry and okay for light tanks that can never touch heavier vehicles.
phew… just got back from John Lewis did I miss anything?
I agree that heavy bolters are better in 6th ed but that only means that I would consider using them again. Missile launchers are still dual purpose weapons and have gotten cheesier by allowing you to snap shot krak missiles as they are not blast weapons.
I have used DW assault cannons plenty of times vs AV12+ to know that glancing a vehicle to death is still not as easy as it seems.
Personally I’d say that Autocannons are more interesting than HBs. Sure, they are slightly less useful against infantry but against light veichles they are pure death, even more so with the new glancing rules. Outflanking scout Sentinels armed with ACs only became better with these rules. Also, for those who can use them, Assault Cannons should be the perfect mix between HBs and ACs.
I very much enjoy Assault Cannons but I feel the major downside to using them (other than their short range) is their points cost. In most of the Space Marine armies, Assault Cannons set you back between 30 and 40 points depending on the unit you’re giving it to.
for razorbacks i normaly take tl assult cannons or tl lascanon
for long fangs i go 2 las 3 missle or 2 plasma 3 missle or 5 missles