It is true that Deathrains aren't going to chew through a tactical squad (although they are going to give it a damn good headache). There are plenty of other things in your army that are going to do that. What they're really good at is wrecking mobility and and being frustrating as hell.
A Deathrain excels at taking down Rhinos and Razorbacks from a very safe distance, and suddenly all those marines inside are exposed to your plasma rifles, fusion blasters, railguns, and ion cannons. They also have to walk, which is frustrating to your opponent.
Deathrains can also knock down landspeeders pretty eaisily, which takes a very mobile heavy bolter and assault cannon off the table (always a good thing). They can also be used to hit Dreads, although the front armour of 12 takes a bit more time to crack.
In my 1000 point list, I run a single Deathrain. My main opponent plays Imperial Fists, and the first few turns almost always go like this: Turn 1 I pop his razorback which is carrying his command squad. Somewhere between Turn 2 and Turn 4 (depending on deployment and if I can get a rear armour shot or not) I take down his Dread. Any turns not spent shooting at the Razorback or Dread are spent taking pot shots at one squad or another, and I'll usually account for 2 or so marines.
That means that my 53 point suit accounts for a 70 point Razorback, a 100ish point Dread, and around 30 points of marines. That is 200+ points (and in a 1000 point game, that's 20% of my opponents army) from a single model who, because of JSJ and the range of the pods, has been killed a total of once in 10 or some games.
So no, Deathrains aren't MEQ killers per say, but I'd be pretty unhappy if I were a marine player staring at one or two across the table
|