Editing Warhammer 40,000/8th Edition Tactics/Apocalypse (section)

=So what's actually good?=
Now that we have boiled down the universes greatest tabletop game into statistics, we have to discuss which models are better than others and which models guns are better than others. Keep in mind that just because a unit is weak physically or lacks firepower doesn't mean that its of no use, what we're looking for are units and weapons which do their job badly. A few things to keep in mind if your examining the data above or looking at a unit or weapons profile:
*The jump between toughness and strength 8 and 9 is huge, there are plenty of models at apocalypse level which are toughness 8, making any weapon with a strength higher than 8 very useful (along with strength 16, which is also rather common). On the flip side, this makes any model with a toughness higher than 8 incredibly tough, as they will not only survive the oh so common strength 8 weapons far better than a toughness 8 model, but are also protected against the total existence failure which a strength 16 weapon would cause.
*Armour saves are often not that important as most weapons have a lot of ap, whats more important are void shields and invulnerability saves, especially in melee.
*Rate of fire (as long as your attacks are not going to wound or hit on a 6+, I'm looking at you orks) is often more important than strength or ap, especially if your target has an invulnerability save.
*Watch out for uber powerful weapons which are actually superfluous to requirement, some weapon profiles may have, for example, Strength 30, but if it wounds stuff at the same rate as a S20 weapon then there’s no point using it.


==Imperium==
===Titans===
====Warhound Titan====
First choice: Turbo laser destructor, although it's not competition really, it out performs both the overcharged blastgun (and doesn't inflict mortal wounds to your titan on 1's) and the inferno gun against all targets except infantry a T7 and below where the inferno guns extra hits really shine. A single volley from this gun is enough to destroy knights and baneblades

Second choice: Vulcan Mega Bolter, the superior gun when it comes to GEQ and MEQ murder due to its high shot count and “good” ap of -2, shot for shot it is the most efficient way of killing GEQ’s without adding in re-rolls, which is unnecessary as a 20 shot volley from this is more than capable of killing 10 guardsmen squad with room to spare, or to kill of most of a tactical squad and leave the rest running in fear. It’s high rate of fire also makes it okay at chipping away a few wounds from other titans to knock them down a damage level.

Third choice (wildcard): Inferno Gun, shorter ranged than the mega bolter and a little overkill when it comes to infantry chewing, but there is one excellent reason for why you might want to take this, overwatch, as this will throw out 14 auto hitting shots at anything stupid enough to charge your Titan.

Last place (the don’t bother option): Plasma blast gun, on normal mode it is far out stripped by the destructor against heavy stuff, and it’s not worth over charging it at the risk of mortal wounds, while the flamer and bolter are both vastly superior for overwatch defence and infantry killing, don’t even bother buying this gun unless you get the Titan value pack, in which case both the war hound titans come with it as standard (probably the only way GW can sell them with the current rules).

====Reaver Titan====
First choice: Reaver Volcano Cannon, a fantastic piece of equipment which performs the best (or joint first place) against all targets other than infantry, take this weapon and with its high rate of fire and damage it will never disappoint you.

Second choice: Reaver Melta cannon, comes in at second place to the the volcano cannon on damage output and draws with it against targets with toughness 8 or lower with either a 3+ save or invulnerability save, its higher shot count also makes it okay at dealing with infantry, and it will chew up heavy infantry (never send custodes against this weapon).

Second choice (melee): The powerfist, the best of all the reavers melee weapons against vehicles etc, while your titanic strides deal with infantry. The 50:50 chance of dealing mortal wounds to a nearby enemy unit is also far more useful than the chainfists mortal wounds, as your “piggy in the middle” land raider can be used to target characters, as it’s an ability, not a shooting attack.

Carapace choice: Incinerator missile bank, a controversial choice as standard wisdom dictates that the apocalypse missile launcher is better, but with the new wounding rules both the missile launchers wound heavies at similar rates (with the apocalypse doing slightly better due to have 2 extra shots). But you shouldn’t be using them against vehicles, they’re designed to murder infantry, and the incinerators 20 shots against infantry means that it kills GEQ’s and MEQ’s at the same rate as the mega bolter (an excellent gun in its own right). But what makes it not just another bolter is it’s almost quadruple range and ability to ignore cover, the latter being something which the apocalypse cannot do, which is disappointing because your missile bank should be a weapon used for clearing out cover camping threats.

Third choice (wildcard): Reaver Gatling Blaster, a tricky choice as the other option for this spot is the Reaver Laser Blaster, which is superior against all targets except infantry, but the gatling blaster excels as an MEQ killer (the best one you have) and as you're already taking the volcano cannon you're not lacking on anti-armour. The only time you should take this over the melta cannon (never replace the volcano cannon) is if you're up against an infantry heavy army where your missile launcher cannot keep up with the swarms coming towards you.

Carapace choice (wildcard): Inferno gun, a strange choice yes, but the reaver lacks weapons which can overwatch for it, and as already discussed, the inferno gun is fantastic at deterring/causing total existence failure to charges.

Last place (the don’t bother option): The chainfist, a weapon which is supposed to be a true TITANIC murderer is far surpassed by its power fist sibling, and all because it has a -1 to hit. As stated above, the only reason you should take this option is that it looks fantastic, a truly awesome piece of model design, which isn’t a problem if you're playing non-competitively, but otherwise just leave it at home.

====Warlord Titan====
First choice: Mori Quake Cannon, and by extention, the most powerful gun in the entire game (in terms of average output,take a moment to let that truly sink in), it out performs all other weapons against all targets (except the twin mega bolter against infantry) and forces all units hit by it to half their movement ranges for their next turn, allowing you to keep calm and keep on shooting. So if you have a warlord titan and need to give it a gun, make the right choice, choose the quake cannon.

Second choice: Sunfury Plasma Annihilator, although its not as good as the quake cannon (or the as yet to be discussed volcano cannon) it has the ability to (on a 4+ after dealing damage) to deal D3 hits to nearby units, and there is nothing that says that these hits cannot create addition hits, and so on, and so on. So if you fire this at an eg ork horde, you could potentially hit every unit in your opponents army, and as it stands there's no rule that says that these extra hits cannot propagate back and re-hit the original units, so while the quake cannon is the most powerful weapon on average, the plasma annihilator has the potential to destroy ('''LITERALLY''') your opponents army, you may not do it in 99 of your games, but on the 100th you might just pull it off...

Second choice (melee): Saturnyne Lascutter, although its technically of lower strength than the fist, its re-rolls to wound make it by far more dangerous, even against the heaviest of opponents and any weaknesses it has against infantry or certain other targets are made up by its greater titanic strides. However, things are complicated by two matters, firstly there's the fists throwing its dead enemy ability (although its identical to the reaver power fist ability), an ability which should not be overlooked as (as previously mentioned) it can target characters with this ability, and sceondly, the lascutter and fist both come with inbuilt ranged weapons, of which the fists inbuilt bolter is on '''AVERAGE''' (if the lascutter makes more than 6-8 hits it surpasses the bolter but this is unlikely) better, especially in overwatch. However, if your in a situation where you want a melee weapon, it's because you know your going to be in melee with some big monsters, and as such you should still take the lascutter over the fist.

First carapace choice: Incinerator missile bank, for the same reasons as previously stated for the reaver Titan.

Second carapace choice: Twin Titan Vulcan mega bolter, there really isn’t any competition once you’ve chosen a missile launcher to fill your long range infantry busting, this gun out shoots all the other carapace options when it comes to annihilating infantry, and it’s high rate of fire makes it almost as good as the flamer when it comes to overwatch defence (and any weaknesses there are plugged up by your ardex weapons). Take this weapon, and combined with the incinerator missile bank there is no amount of infantry which your opponent can throw at you without going for the smallest squad sizes possible.

Third choice (wildcard): Warlord Gatling Blaster, for the same reasons as why the Reaver Gatling Blaster is the wildcard for the reaver, it is exceptionally good at dealing with infantry.

Third carapace choice (wildcard): Reaver Laser Blaster, although not the best gun we've seen so far it is the best super heavy killer you can fit on your carapace, and although it won't out shoot (not by a long shot) any of your main guns, it will more than happily wipe out a knight with 7 wounds to spare, making it idea for taking out small things which you wouldn't normally bother shooting at, baneblades, land raiders, you know, small things by comparison to what your main guns are firing at. It also makes the Warlord the only titan which is really capable of dealing with every possible threat, as the reaver and warhound just don't have the number of hard points required to take such a large variety of guns.

Other option: Ardex-Defensor Maulers, although the lascannon and maulers do better against ceratin targets over the other, the maulers higher rate of fire is of greater use, especially as these weapons are meant to be part of your overwatch defence, and eve if your lascannon will hit on a 5+ in overwatch, it still only has two shots, meaning you only have a 66.66% chance of one of them actually hitting something.

Last place (the don’t bother option): Belicosa Volcano Cannon, despite looking excellent on paper, its low rate of fire and excessively high strength but not high enough to wound a warlord on a 2+ make this a rather mediocre weapon, which is far out classed by the other weapons available, its even only slightly better than the sunfire cannon, and that weapons not even trying to be a true titan killer, and it at least causes additional hits to all nearby units. So unless this weapon gets some kind of buff just don't take it.

==Chaos==
==Orks==
==Tau==
==Eldar==
===Titans===
====Revenant Titan====
Pulsars, sonic lances or a mix?
Stick to the Pulsars, the sonic lances (although they wound everything on at least a 4+) don't deal enough damage to be useful against multi wound models, being out classed by the Pulsar. The Pulsars also deal a ridiculous amount of damage as a pair, performing on parr with the warhounds laser destructor (outclassing it against warhound like targets), but you can do something that the destructor can't do, split your fire against separate targets (or at least two separate ones) making the your pulsars more flexible.

The cloud burst missile launcher is fairly meh for a titan weapon (especially at 48" range) but will do an okay job at holding infantry at bay.

====Phantom Titan====

==Necrons==
===Gauss Pylon===
At 550 points this model is a steal (where most titan killing weapons are either baneblades or cost 1000+ points), being more survivable than a stompa while packing enough punch to almost one shot a stompa (which costs roughly the same price). It's poor shooting once stuck in melee does mean that if it does get stuck in melee it will never win, keep it in reserve until either your opponent moves a titanic unit into a nice line of sight, or deploy into your deployment zone turn 1 (effectively a better version of the swarmlords ability). There's not much else to say about it other than the fact that it cannot move, so always plan its position in advance, but otherwise it is a must have for any necron apocalypse army, and will happily pay for itself in 2000 points and less battles as long as your opponent brought along some juicy vehicles to shoot at.

==Tyranids==
===Barbed Hierodule and Scythed Hierodule===
You cannot discuss one Hierodule without discussing the other, as the two are just slight variations of each other, with the barbed version being the shooty varient while the scythed is the choppy varient, with the "base" model being effectively a faster baneblade. 

===Harridan===


===Hierophant===
The Hierophant has a set load out, so discussion about its preferred load out is unnecessary. What is necessary is to point out that it has the highest damage output for its price, period, its bio cannons pump out 18.66 damage per gun (and it has two of them remember), out gunning both the warhound laser destructor and the revenant pulsar, while also packing a "stomp attack" (although these attacks are slightly weaker per hit than the other "scout" titans) and a proper titan killer melee attack (the only scout titan to do so) which is almost on parr with Reaver and Warlord melee weapons, while also possessing a 5++ against ranged and melee attacks. So, from a simple damage output, it is the best "scout" titan available, providing the most anti-titan damage for the price range, but all of this must be factored against how squishy this thing is, possessing the (as previously mentioned) danger point toughness of 8.