Rate the new units !

[Nuclear Arbitor]

originally every race had a power free AV option so that you could get out something in order to threaten vehicle armour, which suddenly appears at t2. SM have pdevs, orks have(ad?) tank bustas, nids have venom broods, and eldar had brightlances. right now SM, nids, and i think orks have power free AV. i'm not going to make judgements on how effective they are but that's what it is.

[Codex]

How does SM have power free AV? Are you counting Pdevs or something?

[Dark Riku]

How does SM have power free AV? Are you counting Pdevs or something?

Yes he is for some unknown reason.

[Major Richard Sharpe]

plasma devastators count more as an unreliable anti-everything rather than dedicated anti vehicle

[Lag]

Plasma devs = best AV

[Kvek]

It could be counted as AV (lol ?) if it didn't hit the bloody terrain all the time

[Asmon]

You nubs can't use them properly.

[Dark Riku]

You nubs can't use them properly.

I hope you are trolling... And even then I don't like it.

[Kvek]

Asmon trolls all the time.

[Nuclear Arbitor]

[...]i'm not going to make judgements on how effective they are[...]

pdevs do full (and high) damage to vehicle armour; therefore they are AV.

[Torpid]

[...]i'm not going to make judgements on how effective they are[...]

pdevs do full (and high) damage to vehicle armour; therefore they are AV.

Lascannons do full (and very high) damage to infantry armour; therefore they are anti infantry.

[dance commander]

[...]i'm not going to make judgements on how effective they are[...]

pdevs do full (and high) damage to vehicle armour; therefore they are AV.

Lascannons do full (and very high) damage to infantry armour; therefore they are anti infantry.

The only difference is that pdev and nm bm can be used effectively against vehicles, if they had terrible accuracy against vehicles then your comparison would be right.

Can you consider them to be effective at av? Yes.
Are they better than dedicated av units? No, especially the blastmaster wich does 50 less damage.

Still nuclear they are officially an artillery unit, not an av one, the shot can be dodged by changing direction while the projectile is in mid air since it will otherwise track (only works with fast moving vehicles though, most of the time a walker will be hit regardelss).

[Lulgrim]

pdevs do full (and high) damage to vehicle armour; therefore they are AV.

Would you buy a P-Dev to counter a Dreadnought?

[Lost Son of Nikhel]

pdevs do full (and high) damage to vehicle armour; therefore they are AV.

Would you buy a P-Dev to counter a Dreadnought?

Not the best squad to counter a Dread, but with any snare (Melta bombs, Orb of the Omnissiah...) it's very effective.

[Lulgrim]

I asked, would you specifically buy the Plasma Dev as response to a walker.

[Asmon]

And the anwser is... No.

[Nuclear Arbitor]

no, i wouldn't, and i wouldn't buy a single venom brood, fire dragon squad, or melta trooper against one either. they can still damage one though. i might buy a pdev to counter a dread if i need anti-infantry flexibility as well and had snares. and i a last ditch one might well not have any choice, even if it is far from ideal.

[Lag]

There are many things that to damage to vehicles. You don't call something AV because it can do damage to vehicles, you call it because it is specialized for that. PDevs just aren't.

[Codex]

We have ROLES and DAMAGE TYPES.

Roles define what they do for your composition.
Damage types define what they can do damage against.

The reason we have this confusion is Anti-vehicle is both a damage type and a role.

Plasdevs do AV damage, but it is NOT their role.
Blastmasters do AV damage, but it is NOT their role.
Banshee exarch does AV damage with Aspect of Strength, but at best she is supplementary AV, not a primary AV source. You buy her to beat the crap out of infantry, despite 51 heavy melee dps is nothing to laugh at.

I really could go on.

@Lag

It doesn't even have to be specialised to do AV to count as AV role, for example look at the Hive Tyrant's Venom Cannon upgrade. It's anti-everything, but it's AV because it provides reliable anti-vehicle damage and accuracy for the HT and changes his role from being a linebreaker/synapse creature to ranged fire support.

[Lag]

Having a rocket launcher on Tacs is AV, but they are not a AV squad per se, just like Catas aren't an AV even though they have a Melta. It's like (if you played CoH) Volks have a Panzerfaust which deals nice dmg to vehicles, but it is only AV capable, while the PAK is an actual AV unit. If we are discussing AV in the context of t2 counters to vehicles, then the rocket launcher, FC Fist and PDev have the same amount of unreliability/ineffectiveness, while the Lascannon devs are actually there to cause the pain. In other words - while I agree with you, I'll stick to what I said because of the context of the discussion.

[Nuclear Arbitor]

the fist is hard AV. pdev does hard av damage but is about as reliable as soft av. missile launcher is soft av.

[Kvek]

the fist is hard AV. pdev does hard av damage but is about as reliable as soft av. missile launcher is soft av.

Lets do a test, somebody will drive around with a razorback, i want to see how pdev will damage it.

[Nuclear Arbitor]

luck and attack ground

[Kvek]

of course.

[dance commander]

the fist is hard AV. pdev does hard av damage but is about as reliable as soft av. missile launcher is soft av.

Lets do a test, somebody will drive around with a razorback, i want to see how pdev will damage it.

If the razorback doesn't change course while the projectile is mid air it will hit it.

[Codex]

If you right click a target, the plasma projectile will target the location where the unit is at at the moment of the plasma cannon firing, regardless of the target's momentum(barring any terrain clipping etc). I.e. artillery doesn't track targets for you. This wasn't always the case.

[Asmon]

I have killed 3 bloodcrushers with pdev 2 days ago

[Kvek]

I have killed 3 bloodcrushers with pdev 2 days ago

wow ur so pro

[Torpid]

I have killed 3 bloodcrushers with pdev 2 days ago

wow ur so pro

I kill bloodthirsters with my lasgun on a bi-daily basis. You don't hear me bragging.

[Vapor]

A few months ago I backed my Baneblade out of an engagement with 4 hp and a squad of fucking spore mines chased it down and killed it with a detonation.

Spore mines = AV