So How Good are Frag Cannons?

I've pretty much nailed down my Raven Guard list, at least the first version of it. Its Core is a Talon Strike Force, with a Shadowstrike Kill Team auxiliary. I've gone for the Debi Company, rather than the Pinion for the Ob Sec.

In the Demi Company I'll run 3 tac squads in Pods with Melta/combi-melta, and a dev squad with 4 Grav Cannons. A captain in Cataphracti armour will tag along to give the Grav Cannons Slow and Purposeful. The Kill Team is 2 units of 5 bolter scouts, and 3 units of 7 Vanguard Vets with assorted Power weapons.

The unknown is the make up of the Aquilla Kill Team I want to take along.



The plan is to try and keep it simple - a Libby with the all important Beacon, and 5 vets. What I'm not certain about is the weapons load out. Because of the way the rules are written, the Veterans can keep their special ammo bolters and take either a heavy weapon (on 4 of them) or a special weapon on all of them.

The obvious choice is 4 Frag Cannons. But for the same points I could give all of them special weapons, and have points left over. Four Frag Cannons are 100pts, 5 melta guns are 50pts, and 5 Plasma Rifles are 75pts.

The benefit of the Frag Cannon is of course flexibility. Two s6 rending templates, or 2 s7 AP3 shots at 24", or 2 s9 AP2 shots at 12". But 4 cannons are 100pts!!

Melta guns complement the Veteran's Special Issue Ammo. With melta guns there is very little the Vets can't threaten and with 5 of them, re-rolling 1's to hit and armour penetration rolls of 1, they have a reasonable chance of taking down a Knight in one volly . I quite like  this combo. I'm not convinced that Plasma Rifles are worth it, given I've got 4 Slow and Purposeful Grav Cannons in the dev squad. Having said that, I've already got 6 twin linked (due to tactical doctrines) melta shots on the tac squads.

Maybe the way to go would be to have 5 melta guns on the Vets, and plasma rifles and combi plasma on the Tac Squads...! That would cost 65pts, still cheaper than 4 frag cannons.

The big advantage Frag Cannons have are the templates. However, the problem with all those templates in one unit is they are likely to wipe out everything in range, before exhausting the wound pool, so some of the templates will go to waste.

The answer of course is to test it out. However, I thought I would throw it out there - thoughts?

EYIG