Templates and blasts matter.

[Str10_hurts]

This is a short bit of why any semi-competitive list and up should consider blast and template weapons even at the cost of losing killing power. (and because I am dodging work this way)

The best way to go about this (I think) is with questions:
'My list is fine tuned and ready to go, why the hell would I want to trade my treasured melta weapons for a flamer....why should I take a missile launcer when I can have other options that suit me better?,

'What do blast and template weapons do my other superior weapons cant?,
All these weapons one thing in common, they have the potential to hit lots of models at once and inflicting hefty damage.

'What does it do for me? my opponent is not stupid and would not allow for this and spread his models, or will make a calculated risk in keeping the models together.,
Exactly!

'Eh?,

Out of all my battles I have played I have noticed my game plan and goals become way easier to achieve when I find out my opponent does not have any templates in his army list. This is due to the fact I do not need to spread models when deploying and moving.
Templates make your opponent spread (or not and huzzah for you).
This spread might not seem to impact the game much but I have noticed that you lose firepower on basic weapons making a unit of ex. 20 necron warriors with pharao (relentless) less effective, not all models can be deployed within cover leaving a couple out making them vulnerable to assault. Assault units also suffer ex. power fist delivery systems take their place in the middle of a unit (due to getting favorable engagements) can lose charge range potential when sustaining heavy casualties from shooting. Embarked units are also at a higher risk when they embark and but can use the vehicle as cover, but this also results in loss of firepower or threat. And the most hefty impact is loss of maneuverability in your army, the more space your units take up the harder it is to coordinate movement within your entire army.

So including these weapons have effect on how your enemy reacts to your army giving you an edge.

Now a couple of things to note.
- A single missile launcher will accomplish absolute squat! You do need a decent damage potential threat, ex. grey hunters with 5 missile launchers.
- Having a single glass cannon in your army might not influence your opponents play style as he will can remove the threat early on, ex. vindicator, banehound (the IG 2+ poison flamer template) or a venom with wracks and liquifier.
- Units that use the flamer template do need a way of getting to a target fast, otherwise your opponent can calculate very easy when to spread when needed, any unit footslogging it.
- I do not use deep strike in these examples as they are usually designed to accomplish one task and after that any damage they might do or lucky saves are a from enemy fire is a bonus.
- I am not telling you what unit to take, every list has certain options that fill in this niche better than others.

Agree? absolute rubbish? Examples of these kind of units that work for you (or not)? Discuss.



TLR, Using blast/template weapons in your army can make your opponent change his battle plan.

[panic_puppet]

I take it then that you'd see modular weapons, i.e. those that have templates but also a dual purpose, as the holy grail of weaponry? I'm thinking along the lines of Missile Launchers (S8 shot or S4 small blast), Ork Burnaz (flamer template or power weapon in combat), Hammerhead railguns (single S10 shot, or S6 large blast), that sort of thing.
As far as that sort of thing goes for things that work for me - the 4 ML devastator squad in my Blood Angel army is superb almost every game. Against tanks, you stand a reasonable shot of getting anything short of a land raider; you can expect 3 to hit, of which 1 will get through to score at least a glance against armour 13, and the odds improve from there. Only ever get fired at armour 14 if its absolutely imperative that I at least slow it down. If there's nothing in dire need of being blown up or slowed down, 3 BS4 S4 blasts and a solitary BS5 blast will make a reasonable dent even on other marines. The trick is that it needs to be subtle and not overtly threatening. Vindicators are comparatively slow and short ranged, and have a massive target on their head from the word go, same tends to go for leman russes and land raiders. Though I suppose the 30-odd furious charge, feel no pain buffed marines right in my opponents face does tend to distract attention from 5 marines sitting way back in a building....

[Konovalev]

What is gained is much less than what is lost. Sure you can influence how your opponent places their models if you have blast weapons. But that doesn't compensate for what you are losing out on by taking those template weapons over another weapon such as a meltagun vs a flamer.

[Str10_hurts]

Good points, I do think you should not give up all your special weapons for templates, but just enough to make your opponent spread out.

[ColShaw]

I think what Str10_hurts is getting at is the idea of "threat". There's two different equations when thinking what weapons to use: threat and effectiveness. The effectiveness of a weapon is, of course, what it actually does. The threat of a weapon affects the game in more subtle, but often useful, ways.

A Meltagun kills a Land Raider? That's effectiveness. A Meltagun sits in a squad more than 12" away from the Land Raider because the Raider doesn't want to get close enough to get nuked by the Melta? That's threat.

By way of a (non-GW) example: I recently started playing the WWII game Flames of War. I use a battery of British 17-pounder anti-tank guns. These are the best AT gun the Brits had in the war. These guns are immobile in-game. I've yet to actually kill more than a single tank with them, and that was in a mission that required the enemy to come to me. But they've always had a large effect on the game. Why? Because they scare tanks, and operate as area-denial weapons.

It affects an opponent's play significantly to have various threats on table. A list that doesn't threaten long-range shooting at all allows the opposition the added tactical options of deploying clustered together for support or outside of cover in better fields of fire. Maybe one Lascannon isn't going to be effective against a Land Raider; but it's a threat to the Raider, so an opponent has to balance the possibility that his Raider may get nailed by the thing when thinking about where to put his big scary tank. Of course, the threat has to be credible, so you need to make your own assessment of your units to ensure they're threatening enough. And effective enough, when it gets down to it.

[russellmoo]

I think Str 10's name says it all- Even though 50% of the time it does nothing (due to getting shot at from Turn 1 on) I can't seem to leave my Demolisher tank out of any list of 1500pts or more- the reason is- players hate it and go out of their way to kill it- this makes my opponents predictable which is nice-

However, I can also see the point of not wanting to take a flamer when you can take a meltagun- especially on a BS4 model- with guard the equation is very different, who doesn't want to put an auto hit weapon on a BS 3 model?

But, I agree that I find it much easier to play against an opponent that doesn't take any template weapons, especially if I happen to have a 30 man blob squad on the table-

[Elios Harg]

I agree completely. I've recently started running a pair of Vindicators in my Dark Angels list and find them incredibly useful. They fill holes I have from being a primarily Deathwing list and they help with board control a great deal as nobody is going to want to get close as long as they're alive.