My Must Have Unit -- Dreadnoughts!

Posted by Ranillon on 27. October 2009 23:27

Ron over at From the Warp has asked we members of the FtW Blogger Group to talk about what unit in our army (or, in my case, my favorite 40K army) is the "must have" we can't live without.  As you can tell from the title of this post my must have are Dreadnoughts -- for my Deathwing army, naturally.

Admittedly, when it comes to the Deathwing you don't have many choices to begin with (at least if you want to stay "pure"), but with that said dreadnoughts are clearly my "gotta have" unit. 

The basic reason is simple - Deathwings need firepower.  At first glance that may not seem like that big of a deal given that we are talking about a terminator force, but heavy weapons are in fact hard to come by (especially after GW decided that apparently terminator squads already had so much extra dakka the only fair thing was to reduce them down to a single heavy weapon).  With Dark Angels stuck using the defective Cyclone Missile Launchers dreadnoughts are the only real way to get effective anti-vehicle boom, most obviously via a twin-linked lascannon.  Still, any extra firepower is more than welcome.

Dreadnoughts are also the only real vehicles you can take with the Deathwing.  Sure, you can take a land raider but in most regular games you won't want to.  One, they are quite pricey and, two, they can't deep strike and thus you could easily have it lumbering on to the field far away from the real action.  By comparison, even in the DA codex dreadnoughts can arrive using (admittedly over-priced) drop pods.  That in turn allows you to take advantage of the one bit of mobility that the Deathwing enjoys - dropping right where you need them rather than having to hike across the board.

Dreadnoughts are also tough.  With a forward armor of 12 and the bonuses that come with being a walker (remember, you have to hit them on their front armor in close-combat) they are hard to kill even without making them venerable.  With their dreadnought melee weapon they can take on pretty much anything and have a reasonably chance of winning.  Of course, you can also take them with two heavy weapons if you like and just sit back and blow things up.  Either way, they give you staying power that even terminators lack.

Finally, dreadnoughts are just cool.  The idea of an nigh eternal warrior trapped in a mobile sarcophagus fighting the Emperor's foes has got to stir the imagination.  You also have a lot of different possible weapon choices and the option of making them venerable (too bad DA can't take an Ironclad).  Add in what you can do with conversions and you end up with a unit that is both fun to play and to paint.  Who could ask for anything more (well, at least if you play Deathwing)?