Best HW / Sentinel loadout?

[grendel]

Looking for opinions on the best loadout for heavy weapons teams and/or sentinels... They're the only things I have left to put together from my battleforces and I'm kind of undecided. I made 3 lascannon heavy weapons teams and One Lascannon sentinel. So I have 6 Hvy Weapons and 2 sentinels to decide on. I might also be able to rip the lascannon off the other sentinel. Scouts or Armored, Missiles, ML, LC, tell me what's proved tried and true for these two units in the wars that you've waged please...

[WestRider]

Autocannon are hard to go wrong with in any context. I think the single-shot Weapons are too expensive on Sentinels, where they're not going to be able to benefit from Bring it Down, so I go Multi-Laser or Autocannon for mine.

For Heavy Weapons Teams, anything except Heavy Bolters is viable, it depends on how it fits in the rest of your list. I tend to lean heavily on Autocannon and Lascannon, but Missile Launchers are a solid, flexible choice, and even Mortars have their place.

Armoured Sentinels are garbage now that it's so much easier to hit them with Krak Grenades and they've only got 2 Hull Points. Scout Sentinels are at least going to get one chance to unload, guaranteed.

[Sgt. Rock]

Okay, what's wrong with Heavy Bolters? Sure, they don't hit as hard as an AC team and they've got a shorter range, but you get an extra three shots to play with. Surely that's worth something against infantry, no? And an HB squad against light vehicles like ork trukks or Rhinos will probably wreck them in only one or two rounds of shooting, allowing your ACs to pick on bigger targets. Or conversely, using the low RoF on the ACs for light vehicles and keep the HBs for the infantry swarm. And since most flyers are AV 10 or 11, Those extra three shots with Bring It Down! might make a difference if you don't have any dedicated AA on the board.

I'm not saying you should replace all your AC teams with HBs, but I would think it might be worth it to take one HB squad. Their uses are a bit situational, but there are enough different situations that they *are* useful that I'd think it's worth keeping one around.

[WestRider]

Autocannon are way better against any Vehicle target. There's no point on the AV chart where the extra shot ends up being better than the two extra Points of Strength. The Autocannon that you can purchase for exactly the same cost will Wreck those Trukks or Rhinos even faster.

Most Flyers are AV10-11 by representation in the Dexes, but the AV12 Flyers are generally the ones that are going to be a problem. Optimized for AA or not, any halfway decent Guard Army should be able to shoot a couple of Storm Talons or DakkaJets out of the sky. And either way, again, the extra 2 Points of S make more difference than the single extra shot.

Against Infantry, if you're running enough Infantry to be worth considering any significant number of Heavy Bolters, you've got enough Lasguns that it's not going to make a real difference in your Anti-Infantry capabilities. And it's making you worse against Vehicles. Which are still a real concern, even in 6th.

If you want an Anti-Infantry Heavy Weapon, go for the Mortar. Even cheaper, easier to keep safe, better Range, and you've got the potential for Barrage Sniping.

Better yet, tho, if you need Anti-Infantry beyond what your Platoons can supply, go for Hellhounds, Griffons, or Valkyries.

The Heavy Bolter is a single-purpose Weapon. To justify a single-purpose Weapon, it needs to be really good at that purpose. It's halfway decent, at best.

I actually have a HB HWS that I still use occasionally. I'm planning on extending the barrels to convert them into Autocannon when I get a chance to pick up some more tubing, because they've just been so underwhelming. When they were 15 Points cheaper than an Autocannon Squad, they were nice, but at the same price, they just don't cut it.

[grendel]

Not sure on the sents yet but I think I'm going to do 6 missile launchers for the HW. Choice of a 8/3 direct shot or a blast (whatever the strength is) seems pretty useful against hordes, MC, or vehicles and not as expensive as 9 lascannons...although that would be godly.