Why SMs vehicles are so infuriatingly bad?

[Slowpork]

I mean it usually doesn´t have max armour (not even talking about overcap), has atrocious damage and costs the same as a squad of completely broken Devastators.

What´s the point of predators or dreadnoughts? Predators cost a lot for what they are, deal laughable damage vs any type of enemy. Did I mention ♥♥♥♥♥♥ armour values?

Dreadnoughts are slightly better but considering they still have the same ♥♥♥♥♥♥ armour and need a lot of upgrades to become even slightly viable. Even with the repair crews around and cover from infantry I just can´t see ANY reason in constructing them.

And don´t even get me started on terrible and expensive land speeders. Requisition and energy for low-tier vehicle? Great idea.

At this point I don´t see at least some upsides to this ♥♥♥♥ vs a proper Devastator+Hero spam.

[The Haney]

If you compare directly to other vehicles the Predator isn't topping any charts, to be sure. But it you look at Space Marines as a whole, the Predator is great. You also have the Vindicator which gets similar adjacency bonuses AND completely ignores cover.

And Landspeeders are fine. They have 6 movement, don't count as open-top AND can be upgraded with anti-vehicle weaponry.

The Dreadnought is fantastic for it's price.

And during all of that you ALSO get a repair unit that doubles as high-damage artillery PLUS can clear tiles PLUS can give tiles a damage reduction boost.

[Slowpork]

Originally posted by The Haney:

If you compare directly to other vehicles the Predator isn't topping any charts, to be sure. But it you look at Space Marines as a whole, the Predator is great. You also have the Vindicator which gets similar adjacency bonuses AND completely ignores cover.

And Landspeeders are fine. They have 6 movement, don't count as open-top AND can be upgraded with anti-vehicle weaponry.

The Dreadnought is fantastic for it's price.

And during all of that you ALSO get a repair unit that doubles as high-damage artillery PLUS can clear tiles PLUS can give tiles a damage reduction boost.

Why is it great? It costs more or less the same as Devastators, deals a lot less damage, needs high tier upgrades to be even viable and by the time you get to this useless trash, I can already pump out 2-3 Devastator squads. 30+ damage glass cannon infantry or 10 damage useless tank? The choice is obvious.

Vindicator is probably slightly better but all this *ignores cover* is pretty useless. Thunderfire cannon obliterates infantry as well but you don´t need to build a couple of extra buildings to get this. Also Vindicator unlocks at tier 6, by the time you get there AI will be knocking on your door with 20-30 squads of all kinds.

Dreadnought is too fragile and repair crews come too late. Sure it might be fantastic but not when I have several low hp dreads which can be destroyed with one attack.

Again, Landspeeders upgrade comes at Tier 7. How is it even an argument?

[The Haney]

It costs more or less the same as Devastators, deals a lot less damage, needs high tier upgrades to be even viable and by the time you get to this useless trash, I can already pump out 2-3 Devastator squads.

It costs *exactly* the same as a Devastator squad.
It moves an extra tile.
It has 4x as much health and doesn't lose combat effectiveness when damaged.
It uses a separate building which frees up your infantry queue.
It enjoys more upgrades which keeps it relevant later in the game.

Vindicator is probably slightly better but all this *ignores cover* is pretty useless. Thunderfire cannon obliterates infantry as well

The ability to ignore cover is insanely useful, actually. And it's not just cover; Vindicators ignore ALL ranged damage reduction, such as the Tau disruption pod or the Jink ability. Thunderfire does not have either of these advantages.

Dreadnought is too fragile and repair crews come too late. Sure it might be fantastic but not when I have several low hp dreads which can be destroyed with one attack.

Dreadnoughts are only one tier behind Thunderfire cannons, so I'm not sure why your repairs are late. Additionally they have more than double the health of your infantry squads and don't lose combat effectiveness when damaged, so I'm not sure where the whole fragility thing comes in.

Again, Landspeeders upgrade comes at Tier 7. How is it even an argument?

There are a myriad of tactical uses for a 6-speed flyer that ignores terrain and water with anti-vehicle/anti-fortification/anti-infantry capability. I find it to be incredibly efficient at late-game scouting, and flanking to prepare for an orbital drop.

I CAN agree that the Razorback is super-lackluster compared to other factions' transports, but I can deal with that since SM infantry is so good AND they get the Land Raider later.

[Lord-Knight Fandragon]

Predators? I find those are some bad ass units. Then again, im only playing vs normal AI....

But I find Predators are bad as hell. THey seem to take alot of damage, and while, yeah, they deal pretty meh damage initially, once you get the Extra Heavy Bolters on them, a platoon of those things just mow right over everything.

Its the Dreadnaughts I dont get......they seem kinda meh armor and weapon wise. What upgrade turns them into killing machines?

[The Haney]

Originally posted by Lord-Knight Fandragon:

Its the Dreadnaughts I dont get......they seem kinda meh armor and weapon wise. What upgrade turns them into killing machines?

I find dreadnoughts to be most useful against ranger-heavy Eldar or Basilisk-heavy Imp Guard, especially on defense. They offer moderate anti-vehicle capability at the same cost as Devastators, swapping range for increased staying power. In short they don't get nuked at long range as easily.

I don't use them often, but when I do they're either holding a defensive line or getting dropped on a flank (opened up by the always-useful landspeeders) to provide a lasting nuisance.

[JDPUK]

Yeah, it's weird, I still like to use them an in all honesty, SM are by reputation formidable, though in Gladius they are by far one of, if not the weakest race.

[The Haney]

I haven't played the tabletop in well over a decade but I vaguely recall the Space Marines weren't exactly bastions of might when it came to stats. Good, yes, but not ungodly. With that being said I wouldn't mind wider disparities in this game (Space Marines / Necrons being insanely powerful but more expensive, Guard being even cheaper, etc).

I know that plays out well in Battlefleet Gothic tabletop, with Necron ships being absurdly strong but exceedingly expensive to field.

[adozu]

One of the most effective and newb friendly pvp build of them all is SM vehicle spam. Bikes for infantry, predators for vehicles, dreads for... punching things really hard, hunters for skimmers/air etc, with great staying potential with their upgrades (at t7 speeders get scary, at t8 predators get amazing, in the right matchups 11 armor vindis on t8 are also a match winner)

All of that while making a building that gives you the two things you most want: req and sci.

It's all you can ever want neatly packaged into a single building line, i'm not really sure how is that bad.

[Slowpork]

It costs *exactly* the same as a Devastator squad.
It moves an extra tile.
It has 4x as much health and doesn't lose combat effectiveness when damaged.
It uses a separate building which frees up your infantry queue.
It enjoys more upgrades which keeps it relevant later in the game.

3 (sometimes 2 with buffs from Chaplain) Devastator squads are more than enough to destroy a Gorkanaut. How many ♥♥♥♥♥♥ Predators do you need to even take half of his HP pool?

Moving an extra tile is useless when:

a. Enemy comes to YOU.
b. Pushing them back with a wall of fire, slowly moving forward. You don´t need an extra tile when there is enemy 4-5 tiles in front and all around you.
c. On smaller maps it´s even more useless.

How devastators are going to lose combat effectiveness when I have them covered by a couple of heroes, several meatshield Tactical squads (and later by Terminators), supported by Apothecaries and Thunderfire? They get benefits from cover and Flesh is weak. How are you even going to lose them?

The ability to ignore cover is insanely useful, actually. And it's not just cover; Vindicators ignore ALL ranged damage reduction, such as the Tau disruption pod or the Jink ability. Thunderfire does not have either of these advantages.

Comes too late, doesn´t deal enough damage to justify the cost. Terminators are a much better alternative.

Dreadnoughts are only one tier behind Thunderfire cannons, so I'm not sure why your repairs are late. Additionally they have more than double the health of your infantry squads and don't lose combat effectiveness when damaged, so I'm not sure where the whole fragility thing comes in.

I´m not even sure we are playing the same game. Mb because I need to build 2 extra buildings for Cannons? Which can take somewhere from 6-10 Turns and then I need to build the cannon itself. Again, infantry benefits from cover and Apothecaries. One is usually enough to restore a squad to its combat effectiveness. To repair a damaged vehicle how many turns to you need? 8 Hp per repair crew, aprox. 40 total health. If the enemy drops it to 10 or something, 2 Thunderfires need at least 2 turns to return Dreadnoughts or Predators into battle with decent HP. And they won´t be firing at that time. While I can restore my infantry instantly and keep pushing. Are you playing on easy or what?

There are a myriad of tactical uses for a 6-speed flyer that ignores terrain and water with anti-vehicle/anti-fortification/anti-infantry capability. I find it to be incredibly efficient at late-game scouting, and flanking to prepare for an orbital drop.

Good luck with you flanking when the enemy base is covered by a couple of Gorkanauts, several Dakkajets/Brunabombers, infantry and the main base itself has around 300-400 HP lol

Honestly, I´m not sure you understand how it plays out vs high level AI. DPS is king. You don´t kill fast enough, you die. Vehicles don´t have damage compared to infantry and to make them even slightly more viable it is absolutely necessary to build a couple of infantry buildings. If I´m going to build them anyway why even bother with mediocre, weak vehicles? I might as well invest this building time into economy.

[Cryostasis]

Gotta say that vs the impossible AI have higher hp allows for your vehicles to survive things like gorkonaught spam and grind down the AI faster than you lose units. Especially as space marines where spamming doesn't help if the enemy AI specifically the astra militarium/tau/chaos have high hp and multiple high damage sources that can wipe infantry not including terminators (with proper placement). But spamming devestators usually helps early game but on larger maps will lose out to attrition.

But overall higher hp and a little group of the thunderfires behind the front lines allows for your predators and eventually landraiders to tank hits and dish out a good amount of damage. Lucky for you against orks they have bad armor but high health so the glass cannon might work out better. But yeah vs other factons the vehicles are not the best but they aren't bad with some research investment.

I have never tho found any good use for more than at most 2 or so landspeeders for scouting but id say skip and go for proper aircraft the melta gun isn't super good for the speedy glass cannon.

Honestly i though vehicles werent that good until going for the who guards the guard achievement when i only had like 30 hours in this game. But the higher hp makes the accidental deaths happen less often. Also side not if you do go for PVP or a impossible Tau on a larger map the damage reduction will be a pain especially if you dont have the Vindicators for damage against riptides. unlike broadside devestators are able to take lots of damage from anti tank that lowers efficiency or kills the squad. (heldrake spam will delete your terminators and devestators easily vs chaos on larger maps)

Devastators are good for their cost and punch really hard against vehicles and fortifications. But Aircraft or counter fire will punish their lower heath. But again they are good more early to mid game than mid to late game.

Quick edit the fact that devastators lose effectiveness at 66% and 33% are consistency draw backs that infantry have that vehicles dont have the drawback of.

[tewall716]

how bad is your research if your fighting 400hp cities and complaining about tier 6 and 7 techs being too high to get to? by then you should have treminators and land raiders not to mention possibly gunships and cannons by then i dont think i would be building devistators at all.

[Ruffian]

SM vehicles are bad? Outside of tech 10 fights, they are pretty solid, even the ones you've mentioned. Scout bikes are amazing at generating kills on infantry, and just general overall pressure, not to mention mines are fantastic.
Razorback is easily the weakpoint of the entire faction - I'd be surprised if you ever see this outside of a Comp game.
Land Speeders have the same design as scout bikes, but skim with 30 hp baseline instead of 13. Pretty big if you want to turn the early game infantry advantage into a rout. Becomes obsolete for a while, with a little redemption for multi-meltas later. Honestly, you're not likely to tech this unless you really want Land Raiders in your future. And it requires a little bit of effort to have them survive that long. Especially, as you rightly pointed out, the enemy will throw proper air at you, most likely killing them all in the process.

Now for the big one. Predators (vs Devastators) is actually not a matter of unit value, but mindset. Devastators are a defensive playstyle (which you will often find yourself on Ultra Hard and Impossible) whereas Predators are designed to push aggressively, not only able to soak fire, but deal with your vehicle problems without losing momentum. Since most others have pointed out the key features, I'll not rehash what others have said, but I'm noticing no one is mentioning the key point of Devastators losing accuracy whilst moving (Heavy Trait) which Predator's Vehicle trait stops from happening. So what's the main point of Predators?
It's a stall tactic.
Having something that's reasonably hard to kill, deals reasonable damage to tougher targets allows you to buy yourself a little more time where the enemy is stuck fighting in the field and not closer to home. Hell, if you want to be specific, use Predators as chunky scouts to hit your enemies, and then pull them back into your super Devastator setup to really slay the field. The idea is you have combat power on the field to stall your opponent until you tech into the big boys (Termies, LR, Storm Raven). The more control of the battlefield you have, the more of your Fortresses stay up, providing you with those delicious additional percentages.

I really can't talk about Dreadnoughts. Honestly, I skip them because I feel there's better stuff on that row, and I'm looking to transfer my build into Storm Ravens ASAP.

Overall, the only issue I have when playing SM is that if the game pulls to endgame (T10) there isn't a unit that outright does work. Whereas other factions have some kind of pinnacle, SM has to continue running with SRs, LRs and Termies in order to win. Sometimes I appreciate that SM always needs to run with some combined arms to win, but other times it's just frustrating that I can't Gargantuan Squiggoth spam.

Edit - Preds are nice for a T4 unit, but T4 tech is honestly the most hotly contested point. So much on that row that's worth it, I can understand why it's hard to justify Preds.

[Slowpork]

Originally posted by tewall716:

how bad is your research if your fighting 400hp cities and complaining about tier 6 and 7 techs being too high to get to? by then you should have treminators and land raiders not to mention possibly gunships and cannons by then i dont think i would be building devistators at all.

Terminators are vehicles? Gunships are made in Armoury? Land raiders come with DLC, you know.

[dexgattaca]

Originally posted by Slowpork:

I mean it usually doesn´t have max armour (not even talking about overcap), has atrocious damage and costs the same as a squad of completely broken Devastators.

What´s the point of predators or dreadnoughts? Predators cost a lot for what they are, deal laughable damage vs any type of enemy. Did I mention ♥♥♥♥♥♥ armour values?

Dreadnoughts are slightly better but considering they still have the same ♥♥♥♥♥♥ armour and need a lot of upgrades to become even slightly viable. Even with the repair crews around and cover from infantry I just can´t see ANY reason in constructing them.

And don´t even get me started on terrible and expensive land speeders. Requisition and energy for low-tier vehicle? Great idea.

At this point I don´t see at least some upsides to this ♥♥♥♥ vs a proper Devastator+Hero spam.

Most SM vehicles have a trait that adds a bonus if they are adjacent to another vehicle of the same type. Predators for example gain a 33% damage bonus against vehicles, monstrous creatures and fortifications. This is pretty huge.

Tanks are maneuverable. They give you the advantage of being able to get across the battle field and reposition quickly. Their damage also doesn't degrade as they lose health.

Dreadnoughts are one of the best scrappers in the early game. They have massive damage and can punch down most heroes. It's like having a Chaos Lord for 60req. Keep them out of anti-tank line of sight with ruins/forests.

Land Speeders are ok as flankers in the early game. Use them to for map control and scouting. Once multi-melta is researched they are great at sniping units and can even take down undefended cities.

The Razorback is awful.

Hunters are about as good as any other other AA unit. They are not great, but if your opponent rushed air and you need an answer asap they will get the job done for cheap.

Land Raiders are a great, high damage and tough tank.

I've held back Impossible difficulty AI rushes using Predators. I personally think it's easier than Devastators because you can fall back and reposition. Obviously you need to be rushing Heavy Bolters research.

SM's have Machine Empathy. It doesn't seem like much but if you have enough vehicles you can rotate the front lines to continually heal your entire army.

[Slowpork]

Originally posted by dexgattaca:

Dreadnoughts are one of the best scrappers in the early game. They have massive damage and can punch down most heroes. It's like having a Chaos Lord for 60req. Keep them out of anti-tank line of sight with ruins/forests.

I've held back Impossible difficulty AI rushes using Predators. I personally think it's easier than Devastators because you can fall back and reposition. Obviously you need to be rushing Heavy Bolters research.

That´s the thing I don´t play on huge maps. So maneuverability is not important here. As for heavy bolters, usually I don´t get this far. By the turn 35-50 the enemy has too many units which I can´t manage to kill with Predators.

Btw that *huge damage buff* actually is not that huge. Predators deal nearly twice less damage than Devastators. Tested this on Monolith. Infantry comes around 25-30 damage, predators don´t even get 15.