Blaster, Heat Lance, Haywire

So, our three AV special weapons. Which one is best in which circumstances?

For my money I'd suggest that Heat Lances are the least good of the three, being somewhat terrible at wounding vehicles. Given this, I would suggest that Heat Lances are best employed for hunting characters and superheavy infantry. Centurions are a perfect target for a heat lance, with the weapon wounding on 3's, completely ignoring their save, and having an excellent chance of killing.

For all around, the Blaster has good strength, good AP, good wounds. works against monsters and vehicles, while still viable against characters and their ilk.

For superheavy vehicles Haywire Blasters seem to be the go to. Sadly there is a decent amount of mortal wound defence for vehicles floating around, but with a potential max damage roll of 12 wounds (assuming maximum attacks, all rolling a 6 to wound, all mortal wound D3's being 3's...) per shot and 4 guns crammed in a squad, they have seriously improved over the index.

But what are your thoughts? Am I wrong?

I've seen it mathhammered in some thread,
HWB beats regular blaster against almost any vehicles due to being.almost half the cost.
Blaster are more efficient because they don't shy away from heavy infantry, against which the HWB struggles.
Heat lances are probably worth if you want to spam reavers and go character blasting around the table, being cheaper than blasters, but better at wounding in melta range, easily reachable by jetbikes.

Logan Frost wrote:

Heat lances are probably worth if you want to spam reavers and go character blasting around the table, being cheaper than blasters, but better at wounding in melta range, easily reachable by jetbikes.

Sorry, what makes Heat Lances better than Blasters at wounding when in melta range? I thought melta just let you reroll damage?

Melta rolls 2d6 and choose the higher.

Logan Frost wrote:

Melta rolls 2d6 and choose the higher.

Yeah but isn't that for damage, not for actually wounding?

Yes, I worded it wrong, it let's you inflict statistically more damage per wound.
Or rather more wounds per passed "to wound" roll.

Heat lance is for HQ hunting (if you can pull it off with a talos + double HL + the sniper strat)

HWB is the obvious best choice for AT, but useless against everything else. The 24" range is so nice.

Blaster is the jack of all trade, pretty good at all but a bit expensive.

Shredder has become very good at AI

DL is probably not that great now (on scourges), since it's heavy and only has extra range as a benefit.

Logan Frost wrote:

I've seen it mathhammered in some thread,
HWB beats regular blaster against almost any vehicles due to being.almost half the cost.
Blaster are more efficient because they don't shy away from heavy infantry, against which the HWB struggles.
Heat lances are probably worth if you want to spam reavers and go character blasting around the table, being cheaper than blasters, but better at wounding in melta range, easily reachable by jetbikes.

I beleive the maths showed that the HWB does on average 1 less wound than the Blaster, and the Blaster has a much higher chance of deleting it's target outright.

Imateria wrote:

Logan Frost wrote:

I've seen it mathhammered in some thread,
HWB beats regular blaster against almost any vehicles due to being.almost half the cost.
Blaster are more efficient because they don't shy away from heavy infantry, against which the HWB struggles.
Heat lances are probably worth if you want to spam reavers and go character blasting around the table, being cheaper than blasters, but better at wounding in melta range, easily reachable by jetbikes.

I beleive the maths showed that the HWB does on average 1 less wound than the Blaster, and the Blaster has a much higher chance of deleting it's target outright.

I mean yes, but point for point the HWB is cheap enough now that it's more cost effective.

Yup nice thing about the HWB is half the pts cost of a blaster, so you can make a nice cheap scourge unit with them.

Everybody keeps saying they think haywire blasters are worth it, and I still don't see it. Yes, the guns are cheap, but the models carrying them aren't.

A unit of haywire Scourges will probably get 8 shots = 5 hits = 2 or 3 mortal wounds. So it will take them 4 or 5 turns to kill a Rhino, or I'm bringing 4 or 5 units of them.

A unit of blaster Scourges will probably cause 7 wounds to a Rhino, if I'm mathing it correctly, which is more than twice as effective.

Blaster Scourges are also vastly more likely to have a lucky roll and kill a Rhino or Predator or equivalent outright - they can do it by rolling nothing but 3s.

Am I mathing wrong or missing something?

I feel like wounds inflicted per points spent is important, but so is wounds inflicted per game turn. Your Scourges may not get a second turn to shoot, especially if their target survived the first volley.

I actually want to be wrong about this because I think haywire blasters are more interesting in an army that's already full of blaster blasters.

I'm not terribly interested in the exact damage inflicted per points since I'm not a mathhammer guy, what interests me about haywire blasters is that they will be particularly useful against certain targets. Got a difficult t8 vehicle that's giving you trouble? Drop in those haywire scourges. Facing necron quantum shielding often? Haywire will go right through it. Don't get me wrong blasters/dark lance is still definetly going to be my main anti-tank weapons, but I wouldn't mind a little more variety in my list and I feel like in those few cases haywire will be real handy.

Calyptra wrote:

Everybody keeps saying they think haywire blasters are worth it, and I still don't see it.  Yes, the guns are cheap, but the models carrying them aren't.

A unit of haywire Scourges will probably get 8 shots = 5 hits = 2 or 3 mortal wounds. So it will take them 4 or 5 turns to kill a Rhino, or I'm bringing 4 or 5 units of them.

A unit of blaster Scourges will probably cause 7 wounds to a Rhino, if I'm mathing it correctly, which is more than twice as effective.
Am I mathing wrong or missing something?

Your math is slightly of, you keep rounding up for the blaster and the haywire down so the difference is a lot less than in your quick math
Haywire VS rhino 8 Shots 5.3 hits, 3.5mortal wounds+0.3wounds => 24 points per wound
Blaster vs rhino 4 shots 2.7 hits 1.8wounds 6.2 damage => 21 points per wound

Now ad a 5++ (not entirely unexpected for dreadnoughts, all our vehicles etc)
blasters drop to 4.1 wound so suddenly 31 points per wound (no difference for the haywire)

Against a knight t8 5++(barely a difference for the haywire)
Blasters become 4 shots 2.7 hits, 1.3 wounds, 0.9 save 3.1 damage => 41 points per wound

Yes against a rhino (and a lot of common vehicles) the blaster is slightly better
Against pretty much anything with a invul save or t8+ or quantum shielding etc the haywire does a lot better.

And the Haywire is slightly more likely to deal damage at all. Which can also be nice to finish something of. And haywire has a bigger range, which for scourges can be a good thing.

As Asvaldir mentioned, haywire does not make blasters absolete, but now it has a reason to be included. Which is as it should be, for me both have their place in TAC lists.

My primary opponent is a Chaos player who loves demon engines. Anything that gets through that 5++ is good in my book.

Thanks for fixing my math.

But against T8 the blaster is wounding as often as the haywire, and does D6 damage. That still seems better, the odd invulnerable save notwithstanding.

Also, blasters are good against targets that aren't vehicles.

Against T8 the blaster is slightly better in raw damage but not when comparing damage per point cost.

Let's assume 3 guys for easy math
blaster 3 shots 2 hits gives 1 wound (no save?) => 3.5 damage
haywire 6 shots, 4 hits, 0.67 wounds, 0.33 saves + 1.33mortal wound from 6 + 1.33 mortal wounds from 4 and 5 => 3 damage
3.5 damage vs 3 wounds 16.7% more damage
Now consider the point cost difference 128 for a unit of blasters vs 92 for a unit of haywire: 39% more expensive
So yes the blaster unit deals more damage as a unit
But you can have 4 units with haywire vs 3 with blasters and then they do not deal as much damage.

And yes blasters are also good against other targets when there are no vehicles and also against t7 good save no invul, vehicles they are a tiny bit better (which is why I would not advise to rely on just haywire).
Blasters are by no means a bad choice, but against invuls and t8+ haywire is slightly better. Thus what you need depends on the rest of your and your opponents army

I think I'll be running heat lances on the hyper mobile reavers for landing next to a character and shooting him up close. Dark Lance's and Blasters will be my main AT on ravagers and 5 man kab squads in venoms. Then I'll probably take a unit or even two of HWB scourges to help put wounds through stuff which stands up to dark light (quantum shielding, invulnerable saves). My only concern with HWB for an "all comers" list is its massive lack of versatility. Against tyranids that 5man HWB scourge squad becomes expensive chaff.

yellabelly wrote:

I think I'll be running heat lances on the hyper mobile reavers for landing next to a character and shooting him up close. Dark Lance's and Blasters will be my main AT on ravagers and 5 man kab squads in venoms. Then I'll probably take a unit or even two of HWB scourges to help put wounds through stuff which stands up to dark light (quantum shielding, invulnerable saves). My only concern with HWB for an "all comers" list is its massive lack of versatility. Against tyranids that 5man HWB scourge squad becomes expensive chaff.

Yes, then again,a deepstriking move 14/16 flying unit with 8s4 ap-1 shots is not great but also not completely useless.

If I fight those bugs I simply don't take haywire scourges.

That's the only problem i see with HWB so far. I play a lot of blind match-making, and against some enemies (orkz and nids), they are not that great.

Otherwise they are top notch.

Can you do two lists? And chose the right one or are you playing tournaments?

I organize tourneys, and we don't like list tailoring so everyone must come with one list for the whole event.

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That seems quite logical.

It is a fair point that haywire blasters are more situational than blasters, every game you'll have a use for blasters but against vehicle light lists (or nids), you'll have a lot less need for them. Still I'd like to be using haywire blasters in most of my games just for a little variety from all blasters.

Calyptra wrote:

Everybody keeps saying they think haywire blasters are worth it, and I still don't see it.  Yes, the guns are cheap, but the models carrying them aren't.

A unit of haywire Scourges will probably get 8 shots = 5 hits = 2 or 3 mortal wounds. So it will take them 4 or 5 turns to kill a Rhino, or I'm bringing 4 or 5 units of them.

A unit of blaster Scourges will probably cause 7 wounds to a Rhino, if I'm mathing it correctly, which is more than twice as effective.

Blaster Scourges are also vastly more likely to have a lucky roll and kill a Rhino or Predator or equivalent outright - they can do it by rolling nothing but 3s.

Am I mathing wrong or missing something?

I feel like wounds inflicted per points spent is important, but so is wounds inflicted per game turn. Your Scourges may not get a second turn to shoot, especially if their target survived the first volley.

I actually want to be wrong about this because I think haywire blasters are more interesting in an army that's already full of blaster blasters.

Scourges are cheaper, 5 Scourges with 4 HWB is 92pts