Venerable Dreadnought vs Defiler in CC

[Vostroyangen9072]

Sorry this is probably a stupid question but could a Venerable Dreadnought without support tear a defiler a new one in Close combat. it has been eating away in my head for about a month now.

[bforber]

I don't know about tearing them a new one, as a Defiler with many CCW can dispose of armored anything in a short amount of time, but I believe defilers have i3, which gives the ven dread a good shot at falcon punching it in the face before it can do anything.

[Dalleron]

Are we taking things like assaulting into cover into account? Or in the open?

It would have as good a chance as anything else. Re-rolling damage results may save you some serious hurt.

Grab the rules and some dice. Roll it up.

[Wildcard]

Since you did not specify the chapter venerable is taken from, i am going to assume we are talking Vanilla marines. And both competitors will be with their default loadouts.

Venerable:
WS 5, S6/10, I4, 2A and armor value 12 and single Dreadnought CCW
Special rule: Venerable: You can force the enemy to reroll damage results on both glancing & penetrating hits

Defiler:
WS 3, S6/10 I3 3A and armor value 12 and atleast two dreadnought CCW
Special rule: Daemonic possession: Ignores shaken and stunned results

Fighters presented, now its time to speculate:

Pros of Venerable
- Venerable will be hitting first.
- Venerable will be hitting on a 3+
- Venerable can do damage on 2+
Cons of Venerable:
- Only 1 DCCW, meaning if it suffers weapon destroyed result on the fight, its most likely done for
- Only 2 attacks to start with: its easy to roll two dice below the required 3+ and 2+ :P

Pros of Defiler
- Stunned results wont give it -1A
- Atleast 2x DCCW meaning even if it losts one it will be still hitting on S10
-- Defiler has a battle cannon that is almost always weapon number 1 to be destroyd if enemy gets weapon destroyed result.
- 3 attacks (and although previously noted that these will be stock variants, number of Attacks can rise up to 5 without altering the basecost of the unit)
- Defiler will do damage on 2+
Cons of Defiler:
- Defiler hits last
- Defiler has lower change to do damage to Venerable Dreadnought, than to receive it
- Defiler will hit on a 4+

Now, the default wargears also include Multi-Melta on the Venerable and Battle Cannon on Defiler. These both could just end the conflict before it even begun. Also, if Venerable gets the assault, things will be alot more favourable to him since the 50% increase in the number of attacks (when compared to the defilers 33% increase in the number of attacks)

So, if neither have sustained any damage when the close combat starts, odds are no doubtedly on the venerables side.
However, defiler isn't interested in any other but wrecked and explodes-results, since it does have plenty of power to nuke back regardless of any other result.
And as said, venerable can only do a glancing hits on a penetration roll of 6 if it loses its only DCCW, so in that way its a liability.

A definate answer cannot be given since so much depends on the dice rolls

But if we go for the simple "attrition" mode, ie. losing one weapon / attack per round of combat (or any other result than ones that would wreck or explode them), the defiler is the definate winner in my opinion.

This was a fun question imo, hope my answer helps

[the jeske]

or the venerable has the load out that people actualy do use and its armed with two twin linked auto cannons [in the case of GK with blessed ammo] and the av12 defiler with it "too huge to get cover" gets blasted from range [and in the case of GK he cant even be stuned/shaken].

[Sure]

Folks let's stay on topic - close combat.
CAN it? Sure! The fun thing about Dreadnought v. Defiler Combat is that the Venerable Dreadnought goes first and hits more often but has less attacks...but if it doesn't take out the Defiler it's quite liable to be shredded due to the number of attacks.
Instead of getting into the mathammer, I'll thumbnail it and say it's a pretty even match with the Dreadnought usually at an advantage b/c it will often go first.

[Vostroyangen9072]

thanks everyone, for the information cause i was thinking of starting an Iron Hand Sm army and i was not sure about exactly what a Venerable Dreadnought could do, but now it is on my shopping list as an Hq
Thanks again everyone.