Lately there's been a bunch of talking about one of the primary weaknesses of Vanilla SM in terms of build options: Heavy Support. You'll find most armies simply take Dakka Preds and whilst ACLC Preds are useful too, their static nature in a Vanilla list puts them on the back burner. The associated problems with Vindicators and Whirlwinds (lack of duality, static, one gun, etc.) generally relegate them to the shelves and Land Raiders will never be point efficient until they have a better defense than AV14 (and rarely taken outside of a pair). This leaves Devastators who are unfortunately over-costed compared to their BA/SW counterparts and when points are tight, this means they also sit on the shelf and look pretty. What happens when we take them off the shelf and decide to bite the extra cost? Well let's see...
First let's take a look at my current 1750 Mech SM list who is a strong contender for my Centurion list atm. Let's see what we can do to take this to 2000 using Devastators. Obviously the Preds will be dropped in favor of the Devs. A Dev squad with 3 missiles has comparable firepower in terms of anti-infantry potential and is much more reliable against armor but for 50 points more. There's the whole mech v foot differences too where the Predator cannot be locked in combat but the Devs don't die to a single lucky shot or get shake-locked, etc. Let's assume you know these differences and can take them into account. So why would we want to bother doing this? SM do pure mech really well and SW do hybrid much better with Long Fangs and Grey Hunters...
One major reason: combat squads and scaling. When you take Preds/Dreads/Tacs/Speeders in the configuration similar to the 1750 list linked above, at 2000 all you really do is add some Speeders and upgrades (Dozers, HKs, combis, etc.) unless you want to play around with the list (i.e. add a MotF for more Dreads) and whilst it works fine at 2000 as well, those extra 90 odd points you generally have leftover seem a bit tacked on. If Devastators were the price of BA devs you could replace all three of the Preds with Devs and a LasPlas RBack and take advantage of Vanilla SM's ability to combat squad and not have super expensive tanks which are fast.
So what does this mean? Tactical marines in Rhinos are one of the main advantages of the Vanilla codex in designing a mech list. They don't even want to get out of their transports, have duality and are a very reliable midfield objective holder. They are however, grossly inefficient which is one of the main arguments against them. 10 guys for 1 MM shot a turn? And you generally don't shoot it the first turn? I can live with that because I know it's tough for my opponent to deal with 10 Tacs in a Rhino when there's everything else on the table but what combat squadding allows us to do is split the Tacticals and leave the MM Rhino bunker in place but also create another scoring LasPlas RBack which can hop out and use their special weapon if needed without feeling bad about losing the scoring opportunity. Yes these 5 man squads aren't as efficient as Grey Hunters or ASM but you've got the efficiency from the whole squad being split in two and running around in two transports. You may lose a bit of efficiency because of the Devastators but they are still providing 3 missiles a turn at 15 points more than BA. Those 15 points add up and close a couple list options but can be worked around.
So here's a sample list taking my 1750 Centurion list to 2000:
HQ -
Libby w/Null & Avenger
Elites -
Dreadnought w/2x TL-autocannons
Dreadnought w/2x TL-autocannons
Dreadnought w/2x TL-autocannons
Troops -
10x Tactical Marines w/flamer, MM, Rhino
10x Tactical Marines w/flamer, MM, Rhino
5x Tactical Marines w/LasPlas RBack
5x Tactical Marines w/LasPlas RBack
Fast Attack -
2x MM/HF Land Speeders
2x MM/HF Land Speeders
Heavy Support -
Predator w/HB sponsons
5x Devastators w/3 ML, LasPlas RBack
5x Devastators w/3 ML, LasPlas RBack
Totals: 2000 points
41 infantry
14 vehicles
Thoughts?
