Long Fangs 1

Greetings wulfkin, and welcome to another day at the blog. For this post, we shall be talking about what weapons to equip long fangs/devastator squads with, using space wolf codex for points cost; the information contained within should still be useful for other Marine codecies however.

Now, commonly accepted internet wisdom is to go all missile launchers, and while it is true that this has tactical flexibility, I invite you to consider other options. The lascannon, while more than twice the expense, makes it much easier to pop tanks, renders it possible to penetrate AV14, and can even be turned onto heavy infantry due to it's low AP value.

The plasma cannon is slightly cheaper than the lascannon, is a very powerful heavy infantry killer, but struggles against tanks due to it's blast and insufficient Strength value, and is risky to use, so probably not worth being still twice as expensive as a missile launcher.

The multimelta is an incredible anti-tank option, due to the melta rule, but is so short ranged it will rarely come into play. If it does manage to come within range, it handles the same roles as the lascannon, only more so. Bonus points for the multimelta is it's low cost; same as the missile launcher in fact.

The heavy bolter is a medium strength anti infantry killer, but only three shots weakens it a bit. Good range but most things you will fire it at come in such numbers that three shots is a drop in the ocean.

Compare Orks as an example. Most of them you will fire a missile launcher at, yet occasionally you come across something like 'ard boyz. Three shots ignoring armour saves sounds good, but you have to roll to hit, unlike a frag missile. The missile will probably still do more damage, even accounting for armour saves.

The missile launcher is covered extensively on the internet, and widely hailed. This is deserved, as for 2/3rds the price of a long fang, you upgrade a long fang to be able to deal with both light infantry and tanks easily, and medium (Up to power armour saves) infantry quite well.

Conclusion: I would go against the knowledge of the internet, and throw a lascannon in each squad; filling the rest of the squad with missile launchers. The lascannon adds versatility to the missile squad by helping to deal with high AV and low AS models, while the rest of the weapons probably arent really useful for their assigned role, or are overcosted.