a couple of questions concerning venoms and shredders

hi there every so I am a brand new archon and have a couple of questions concerning, believe it or not, venoms and shredders.

first on venoms why does it seem like the second splinter cannon is worth the ten point cost? running the numbers in my head it seems like the 7-8 shots of the TLSR/SC will yield 3 wounds while dual cannons yields 4 so is the 12" range upgrade really that good?

also since venoms are sexy little craft my Kabal at 1500 and above fields 2-3 squads of 5 warriors with SGT. shredder and venom with Nigjt shield I am thinking that since the efficiency of splinter weapons decreases as enemy T. values decreas that these squads will be my go to squads for dealing light infantry dug into cover. IG for instance. is this a reasonable assumption or are my days as colonel fielding about 150 dudes at 1500 skewing my thought process?

P.S. the rest of the army is an archon w/ true born in a venom 2x 10 true born with 4 blasters in raiders and 2x 10 warriors with cannon and shredder in raiders all vehicles of NS/FF

First, keep in mind, that the TLSR has two shots in 12" and one in 24", so it isn't only the range increase, but the TLSR roughly equals 0.5-1 wounds between 12" and 24", while the SC equals 2 wounds at 36", so these 10pts double to quadrouple the value of the TLSR, while giving the venom a solid 36" range.

Second, this depends mainly on your opponents' style of play, but shredders are seldom worth their points, since a shredder will result in only one to two hits against spread out squads and can't fire at more than 12" at all.

P.S.: What is the purpose of 2x10 trueborn squads? After all that's almost 150pts of trueborn wielding weapons that can't hurt tanks.

Well I can see the value of having 2 cannons of the venom stays at long range but what about when the range dops? 2 SCs will still throw out 12 shots 8 hits and four wounds while a TLSR/SC throws out 8 shots 6 hits and 3 wounds so the way I see it when the range drops the value of the canon also drops. Am I missing something?

As for the 10x trueborn squads the guys in my gaming group don't really run the whole Massive razorspam so I don't really need massively dedicated AT squads. Also there are a couple tau and sm players so I will definately end up using as termie/xv8 hunters where the rifles will be able to help.

And are shredders really that ineffective? It seems that for less than the cost of an IG grunt I can get a weapon system that can greatly increase the squads firepower when they jump out of their boat to rapid fire some poor fool.

i was going to ask the same thing, why are you putting expensive trueborn in a raider when you have very few troops in venoms? with warriors in raiders going 6 inches you can shoot off 2 dark lances (i'm counting the raider) and a blaster taking a half unit in a venom gives you 1(don't have my book by me) special shot and the raider can have splinter wracks (i'm so DE i don't know if that's spelled correctly or not) for a re-roll. where as putting the trueborn in a venom not a single model doesn't have a special weapon, you can even add in a 5th guy and put a SC on him for funzies. moving 6" that's 18 poison shots and 4 18" DL shots

one second when you say warrior in a raider can fire two lances you mean they can fire the raiders dark lance and the squads blaster right? also part of plan with the full TBs is that they can go out and blast termies and crisis suits and thus leave scoring units well away from such elite infantry i.e. the TB blast the LRC and then the assault termies while the warriors are over there o the obj.

there is a chance my lgs is miss reading the rules but that's how we do it

yeah that's it is supposed to work it just sounded like you had a dark lance in the squad and were moving the raider 6" and firing the squads dark lance which the couldnt do as they are not relentless

Black_pheonix wrote:

Well I can see the value of having 2 cannons of the venom stays at long range but what about when the range dops? 2 SCs will still throw out 12 shots 8 hits and four wounds while a TLSR/SC throws out 8 shots 6 hits and 3 wounds so the way I see it when the range drops the value of the canon also drops. Am I missing something?

Yeah, you are right. Since the TLSR is a shorter ranged rapid fire weapon it's worth increases with decreasing range.
The SC is 6 shots / 4 Hits / 2 Wounds allways, while the TLSR is 0 shots / 0 Hits / 0 Wounds at 36", 1 shot / 0.88 Hits / 0.44 Wounds at 24" and 2 shots / 1.77 Hits / 0.88 Wounds at 12".
So the SC is 2 Wounds better than the TLSR at 36", roughly 1.5 better at 24" and better by one at 12", for 10 points.

Black_pheonix wrote:

And are shredders really that ineffective? It seems that for less than the cost of an IG grunt I can get a weapon system that can greatly increase the squads firepower when they jump out of their boat to rapid fire some poor fool.

And that's were you lost me. You argue that a weapon, that adds 1-2 Wounds and 12" of range, is overpriced, while you are willing to pay 5 points for a weapon that probably will inflict only half a wound more or even less than a normal SR.
I admit it looks great on paper it's a S6 small blast marker for 5 points, what could one do wrong?

You hit 9 models and inflict 7.5 Wounds, right?
Too much? But you will hit 4 without problems, won't you?
Unfortunately it is very unlikely to hit more than 2 models, if they are spread out by 2" each, since you have to place it centered on a model, the diagonal distance between two models is 2.8" and the blast marker scatters by whole inches only.
Additionally the Shredder is AP- so it will suffer from 6+ and 5+ armour.
Just to Mathhammer it:
Shredder
2 Hits / 1.66 Wounds / 1.4 after 6+Save
2 Hits / 1.66 Wounds / 1.1 after 5+Save
1 Hits / 0.83 Wounds / 0.7 after 6+Save
1 Hits / 0.83 Wounds / 0.5 after 5+Save
SR:
2 shots / 1.33 Hits / 0.66 Wounds
t

The Venom is also a potent weapon for alpha anti-infantry strike. There are multiple dangerous builds that use infantry on the board (Long Fangs and Lootas immediately spring to mind) With S.Cannons a bunch of Venoms have the capability to neutralize or hinder the enemy greatly on Turn 1, possibly before he's even had a chance to shoot. With our glass jaws that's pretty important.