Back in Black

Hey,

Im back at last, well at least kind of. My PhD still don’t leaves me time to play/paint. So im really looking forward to my soon to come vacation where I can beat some heads in and see how much the guys have learned while I was gone. ;)

After taking a long sabbatical from blogging i though i drop back by and talk about a topic that has always been of special interest for me, volume of fire.
Since I first started to use Havoc´s with 4 heavy bolters in city fights, I was quite amazed how efficient those guys could be against all kinds of infantry.
I initially used them because I was low on high AP fire power, except for melters. Therefore I used my heavy support choices to suppress the enemy infantry, while my Chaos Marine and Choosen squads moved in with the melters and power fits to kill of the enemy heavy armor.

So I used, unaware of the coming changes, already an army composition a lot of people seem to use nowadays. If you look around you see melters everywhere and the days of double plasma teams seem to be almost over. This of course hasn’t come with out a reason, I think the two most prominent are the ever present cover saves and the raise of the Landraiders in 5th Edition.
So one could say, with the introduction of 5th Edition a lot of people have come aware of the power of volume of fire. Just to give you some numbers, all point costs set aside, imagine I would use my Havoc´s with either 4 heavy bolter of 4 lascannons.

Havoc´s against Space Marines in cover

with heavy bolters
Shots 12
Hits 8
Wounds 5,333333333
Kills 1,777777778

with lascannons
Shots 4
Hits 2,666666667
Wounds 2,222222222
Kills 1,111111111


and against Imperisl Soldiers in cover


with heavy bolters
Shots 12
Hits 8
Wounds 6,666666667
Kills 3,333333333

with lascannons
Shots 4
Hits 2,666666667
Wounds 2,222222222
Kills 1,111111111


I believe it becomes quite obvious that heavy bolters, and high volume of fire weapons per se, are the weapon of choice when confronted with infantry in cover.
The heavy bolters are more then 60% more efficient in killing MEQ´s and 300% as efficient in killing GEQ´s.
This of course assumes that the MEQ´s and GEQ´s are in cover. But come on, who is not in cover these days?

I think that covers my initial thoughts on volume of fire. Ill be back with more, when I get the time to theorycraft for my glorious return!
“For the laughing stock of the 40k Universe!”….err I mean “FOR THE WARMASTER”!

Cheers.