Evil and Chaos wrote:
Y'know what, I forgot that NetEA Dreads are Armour 3+ in arguing against a points rise... at armour 4+ that army would be good but beatable, I think... with armour 3+ it'd be too good.
So yeah, consider my opinion changed.
And that's why sometimes you just have to say "this is good enough" and accept that some internal balance issues are off. 3+ dreadnoughts are solely to make them useful in the Codex list but it's a source of point inflation in lists where dreads' roles can be optimized.
4 Dreads with 3+ armor definitely worth 250 points (possibly more).
Shooty ones have the same firepower as Devs. Better armor plus AV status makes them darn near twice as tough. Walker ability so they can take advantage of most of the same kinds of terrain. They have better CC, so that removes a weakness. They lose on FF ability and transport. Overall, I'd rate them better than Devs unless you want a highly mobile formation. That's 250 points, easy.
Assault dreads have 3/4 the CC power of Termies, are almost as tough and have the same air assault ability (which I realize is not an issue in this list, but you see the point). That puts them at ~250 points for the initial assault. At range, they have about half the firepower but AV status on top of their armor value makes them just as tough as the infantry Termies, so the follow on abilities after an air insert would also put them at ~250 versus the Termies' @ 350.