Why ever take a Lord?

[IronWinds]

After reading other topics about Lords, and then saying why I thought a sorcerer was better in most cases I decided to really run the numbers.

 

 

Ok base statline, no upgrades, Sorcerer is only 10pts more than a lord, for that 10pts he gets a force weapon.... obviously worth more than 10pts when the lord only has a chainsword, oh and his WS is 1 less.

 

Minimum build: Lord, PW(no one would not at least take that). Sorcerer, doombolt(cheapest power). Now the sorcerer is only 5pts more(110 vs 105). For those 5pts you have -1WS, a force weapon instead of a power weapon, and a decent anti-meq shooty attack. Thats a lot for 5pts.

 

Now looking at the more expensive builds. It occured to me that sorcerer's w/ warptime cost about the same as lords w/ twin claws, and warptime far outweighs the +1WS.

 

Lord, Twin LCs: 120

Sorcerer, warptime: 125

 

Using WS5 marine as test subject because against WS4 sorcerer has huge advantage.... as you'll see.

Lord against marine w/ WS5 or WS4: 4 attacks, 2.666 hits, 1.99999 wounds after re-roll.

Sorcerer against marine w/ WS5: 4 attacks, 3 hits after warptime, 2.25 wounds after warptime.

Sorcerer against marine w/ WS4: 4 attacks, 3.555 hits after warptime, 2.666 wounds after warptime.

 

Wings, terminator armor, etc.... results end up being extremely similar. Both in termy armor the Sorcerer is 10pts more instead of 5, only real difference. Now the Lord is harder to hit for enemies w/ WS6 and 6 only, for WS5 or less or WS7 or greater they are the same to hit. So when comparing to warptime the +1WS that the lord enjoys really isn't that impressive.

 

Advantages the lord has.....

Can take MoK. This boosts hit total wounds against WS5 marines to 2.4999.

But... against a WS 4 marine the sorcerer's total is 2.6666 while the Lord w/ twin LCs & MoK is still only 2.4999. So against your average marine the sorcerer w/ warptime is better even when you throw MoK on the Lord ;) . So against enemies with WS5, and 5 only, the bezerker lord is better than the warptime sorcerer. That just seems odd....

 

Can take a deamon weapon. Both risky and scary.

Undivided deamon weapon(+1str) against WS5 marine: avg 5.166 attacks, 3.444 hit, 2.296 wounds. Well beat warptime against WS5 enemies but not against WS4 enemies. Now that is the average roll for the demon weapon, which includes rolls of 1(0 attacks). So again, very risky weapon, if you roll well for attacks it will outperform warptime, but once you roll a 1 you are in pretty bad shape. And of course there are the god specific deamon weapons to consider.

 

Lord doesn't have to worry about anti-psyker stuff. No comparison here, Lord doesn't have to worry because he isn't one.

 

Hope I didn't math hammer that to death to much. I'm good with numbers. Lord ends up being 5pts less in most cases, personally I think the sorcerer outperforming in almost every case.... and having a force weapon are worth 5pts.

 

So unless your a World Eater player w/o a demon prince model, all your opponents have psychic hoods, or you really love deamon weapons, why take a lord?

[minigun762]

Did you factor in the chance for your Psychic Power to fail? I remember doing the math before and it was pretty much a 3 way tie for

1) Khorne Lord with dual Claws

2) Warptime Sorcerer

3) Undivided Daemon Weapon Lord

 

But you are right, if you're not taking a Daemon Weapon (or Claws for Khorne) you are wasting the potential of the Lord.

[IronWinds]

Crap... I didn't, hence why I shouldn't do math late at night after running portfolios for clients all day.

 

And that was all on my calculator. Trying to figure in all the results for a 2d6 roll and figure them into the statistics for the amount of wounds delivered.... that is something I can do w/ a calculator but I would prefer to have excel do it for me and there is no way I'm turning on my work laptop this late.

 

Honestly I didn't think about it because I have yet to have the misfortune of failing a psychic test. Don't ask me how, of my 4 HQs, 2 are sorcerers, and 1 is a DP w/ warptime(also the one I use the most). And I fail my ld tests all the time, thank god for icon of glory because I always get the re-roll :D . Just never fail psychic tests, thank the gods.

 

And while we are on the subject... the 3 way tie.... the sorcerer can still insta-kill ;) . Not a huge difference, but if they are all tied I consider that a tie breaker.

[sexiest_hero]

The Sorc can be completely shut down by other powers/equiptment abilities. You can roll a one for a daemon wep, you can fail a test using warptime=wash. He has better WS, and taking a cheap mark to put him over the top in some match ups.

 

I feel you are unfair. a lord with LCx2 and MoS is 125. for the same points he is faster and more skilled than the Sorceror, with no chance of failing a test or being shut down by anything.

 

A termie lord with combi melta at 125 has a better save, better WS,and the ability to insta-kill from range or knock down a tank

[chillin]

Yeah, you gave a brief mention to anti-psy stuff (of which there is more and more) but you didn't take it into account at all in your math hammer (nor failing a psy test as has already been brought up) . Those 2 things considered, your #'s are pretty flawed.

[rottenlad]

Don't forget targets that are immune to instant death that kind of nurfs the whole force weapon trump. All of the hqs have their strengths and weakness it really comes down to how you play.

[bap2703]

You can roll a one for a daemon wep, you can fail a test using warptime=wash.

 

Probability to do nothing with a daemon weapon : 1/6. (including a wound 1/6th of times saved by inv save)

Probability to do miss a Psychic power : 3/36 (including a wound 1/36th of times saved by rerolled passed inv save)

 

Psychic power miss half the times the daemon weapon. Psychic power can also hurt you on another 1/36 but at least the power passes.

 

Additionally if warptime fails you can still hit normally with the sorcerer !

 

 

I feel you are unfair. a lord with LCx2 and MoS is 125. for the same points he is faster and more skilled than the Sorceror, with no chance of failing a test or being shut down by anything.

 

Sorcerer with MoS is also faster... And as explained before (this exactly the same case except the I5) he IS better with warptime at the cost of being able to miss its psychic test or being annoyed by psychic protections (and the additional 5pts).

 

 

A termie lord with combi melta at 125 has a better save, better WS,and the ability to insta-kill from range or knock down a tank

 

We can continue with all possible combination if you want...

Termie sorcerer with combi melta and doombolt : 130 pts (I put doombolt because it's the cheapest power)

Then again you have : same save, same combi-melta... plus you can still use doombolt when your combi-melta is useless.

Wait it seems someone already explained this...

For those 5pts you have -1WS, a force weapon instead of a power weapon, and a decent anti-meq shooty attack. Thats a lot for 5pts.

[bap2703]

http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/5725/stathq.png

 

 

So I simulated 1000000 combat rounds for several configurations of lords and sorcerers.

This is done against an enemy having WS4 or WS5 and T4 (same result for the lord and two different curves for the sorcerer). This is done without assaulting (no extra attack)

 

What can we see ?

As expected Lord with MoK 2*LC and warptime sorcerer obtain the same profile : Sorcerer do quite better against WS4 but do only slightly worse against WS5. Note this doesn't take into account failling to cast warptime.

The lord with 2*LC without MoK is doing even worse than the sorcerer.

 

I included the daemon weapons :

- Khorne has a HUGE standard deviation and has the expected 1/3rd risk of doing nothing. Due to his amount of attacks when he don't roll a 1, he almost never fail completely... when he don't roll a 1 for the daemon weapon rolls. Don't seriously expect to do the maximum amount of wounds (15), I had to cut the graph because the curve is just almost 0 after 11 wounds.

- Undivided chaos got less risk to do nothing but is not as good as the S5 could let you think.

- Tzeentch and Slaanesh are not doing very well. (this doesn't not include firing with Tzeentch weapon or doing instant death with Slaanesh)

 

My conclusion is :

- daemon weapons are overpriced !

- warptime is great

- sorcerer and lord are quite well balanced in cost. (but the sorcerer is better :eek)

[chillin]

Unless I'm missing something you said, again you didn't include being able to fail a psy-test or opponents anti-psy stuff. Funny how that gets left out again and again by the pro-sorc people (and not just in this thread).

I'm not pro-eather, I use both sorc and lord (& DP), it just seems that some people want to discount lord for some reason and throw out very biased math hammer that fails to take into account failed psy-test, PoW wounds, anti-psy stuff, and that most HQ's hit sorc on 3+ and lord on 4+. But NOone forgets that a lord can roll a 1 for a D. weop.

Not trying to convience anyone to use lord over sorc (trying to convience someone to use something they've decided they don't like is a waste of time) but if you're going to throw out math hammer, at least make it unbiased and (try to) include the pros and cons for the sorc and lord, the con-sorc stuff always seems to get left out of the equation for some reason. :)

[bap2703]

You are right. I simply supposed it wouldn't have so much effect.

So I now included the psy test. The chance to fail is 3/36 (results 11 and 12).

 

Here is a comparison :

http://img509.imageshack.us/img509/6766/stathq2.png

 

Dark red and dark blue are the previous calculation. Lighter red and lighter blue are the new calculations that include the psy test.

In green I still show the Khorne lord with twin lightning claws for comparison.

 

As you can see the results are a bit worse. The main difference is that if you miscast warptime, you can still hit normally. With a daemon weapon you just don't do anything.

 

My opinion : This is why I don't like daemon weapons : I often have some flying lord which I sent at key moments of the battle (near turn 5-7 you know). And I really don't like him just sitting there doing nothing while suffering under enemy weapons.

I am not especially defending the sorcerer : many times I tried to unleash the close combat master that should be the chaos lord. But as many times I found that apart from the mini he has no outstanding advantages to offer. I mean nothing that everybody see and say "that must be awesome or truly fluffy".

 

The lord is not bad, he is just in competition with the sorcerer casting warptime. In my mind this souldn't have happened.

[King Tiger]

why take a lord?

modeling opportunities, great model and more importantly it actually means you'll have a HQ which isn't the same as everyone elses boring bland lash prince

[IronWinds]

modeling opportunities, great model and more importantly it actually means you'll have a HQ which isn't the same as everyone elses boring bland lash prince

 

I agree completely. But there is not a huge difference between a sorcerer and lord model.

 

Everyone attacking me for forgetting the psy test. That was covered in the first 3 posts. And as minigun pointed out, and later bab proved with more stats there is not a huge difference between MoK twin LC lord and a warptime sorcerer. Except that the sorcerer for the same points also has the option of using the force weapon. Not a huge deal, but a tie breaker IMO.

 

Don't forget targets that are immune to instant death that kind of nurfs the whole force weapon trump. All of the hqs have their strengths and weakness it really comes down to how you play.

 

I never presented the force weapon as being a huge selling point, no warptime is the selling point, just that is was obviously better than just having a PW. The force weapon isn't the end all answer, but it is a good tie breaker.

 

I'm not pro-eather, I use both sorc and lord (& DP), it just seems that some people want to discount lord for some reason and throw out very biased math hammer that fails to take into account failed psy-test, PoW wounds, anti-psy stuff, and that most HQ's hit sorc on 3+ and lord on 4+. But NOone forgets that a lord can roll a 1 for a D. weop.

 

Sorry for forgetting the psy test. There is no way to account for the anti-psy stuff in statistics as some armies have them, some don't, etc. It would have to be a case by case basis, so it really comes down to your opponents, only 1 of mine brings an anti-psy device so it is not a huge deal for me. Most HQs? Enemies with WS6.... and 6 only. Enemies WS5 or less hit both on a 4 untill you get down to WS2 where they hit both on a 5, no exceptions. Enemies WS7 or more hit both on a 3, no exceptions. Not that many HQs are exactly WS6. The vast majority of WS6 models are chaos/demons, nids, eldar/dark eldar.

 

 

And just for fun.

 

Sorcerer no Warptime against WS5: 1 wound.... ok pretty crappy

Sorcerer no warptime against WS4: 1.33 wounds.

 

No not as good as a lord w/ twin claws. One thing does come to mind though. When a lord w/ demon weapon rolls a 1 he can't attack and takes a wound. When a sorcerer fails his psy test he might take a wound, and if he fails a psy test or the enemy has anti-psy equipment he still gets to attack. So in the 3/36 chance he fails his test.... he doesn't become useless, just less effective. I think thats why in bab's last graph the sorcerer after figuring in failed psy tests was doing roughly as well as the MoK twin LC lord.

 

I'll concede that in certain circumstances the twin claw lord w/ MoK is better. However if you want a cheap HQ, the cheap sorcerer is really better. Me personally... if I want an expensive HQ I'll just take a DP, so for me personally the question remains, why ever take a lord.

[Seahawk]

why take a lord?

Because:

- it seems like a "novel" idea that somebody doesn't have a lash prince on the table.

- it's mega-fluffy (for some armies).

- when you come up against other WS6 models, they're only hitting you on 4's instead of 3's.

- it's cheaper.

- it's not an easy/high priority target, so you don't have to worry about it getting pasted on the first turn.

- it has different/more useful options (for some armies).

- when you fail the test and take a wound, the lord only has to roll his Inv once instead of twice (if successful the first time) like the Sorc.

- it can also have an insta-gib weapon (blissgiver).

[Sovereign]

IMO, the easy difference is to send each of them against Mephiston and see who wins... :)

[chillin]

Most HQs? Enemies with WS6.... and 6 only. Enemies WS5 or less hit both on a 4 untill you get down to WS2 where they hit both on a 5, no exceptions. Enemies WS7 or more hit both on a 3, no exceptions. Not that many HQs are exactly WS6.

 

Yeah, I was thinking lord had WS.7 for some reason. Most have been confusing his w/ DP.

My bad.

[IronWinds]

No prob chillin. I agree, some enemies will have an easier time hitting him, but there are not that many of those.

 

- it seems like a "novel" idea that somebody doesn't have a lash prince on the table.

- it's mega-fluffy (for some armies).

- when you come up against other WS6 models, they're only hitting you on 4's instead of 3's.

- it's cheaper.

- it's not an easy/high priority target, so you don't have to worry about it getting pasted on the first turn.

- it has different/more useful options (for some armies).

- when you fail the test and take a wound, the lord only has to roll his Inv once instead of twice (if successful the first time) like the Sorc.

- it can also have an insta-gib weapon (blissgiver).

 

I completely agree on fluffy. In 3.5 I had a nasty lord... one of those 200+pt monsters, and sadly can't build him under the current rules so I just count as abby. And I agree on not taking lash princes... which the lord and sorcerer have in common. But... few WS6 models, only 5pts cheaper than a sorcerer once you throw weapons on. Sorcerer also not a high priority target. Only (useful)options lord has that sorcerer doesn't are claws and MoK. Yes sorcerer is more likely to hurt himself when he fails, but sorcerer is a whole lot less likely to suffer from PoW(2/36) than the lord is to fail his mastery(1/6), and when you fail PoW you still get to attack(on double 1s you even still get to use your power), you don't take a wound 'and' sit there waiting to be attacked for a turn. And sorcerer gets an insta-kill weapon almost for free(based on the tiny 5pt difference).... his force weapon. Now yes, the blissgiver is much better, instakilling anything it wounds instead of just 1 model. I wish more Slannesh players would take lords and take advantage of the blissgiver... ahh would be the day... but they are all running around with lash princes.

 

 

So I'm happy I did find some reasons to take a lord. Just to bad I'm not a Slannesh or Khorne player.

[minigun762]

So I'm happy I did find some reasons to take a lord. Just to bad I'm not a Slannesh or Khorne player.

 

Oddly enough the best Lord is probably the Nurgle one, because the Nurgle DW is amazing. Better then the Undivided one the vast majority of the time and a straight killer against MCs.

[Grey Mage]

Of course, Warp Time can be Nullified, and I see alot of lists bringing Rune Priests or Libbies these days. Just a thought.

 

Having the Sorceror and the Lord with equal attacks was a dumb move- lord could have used 4.

[the jeske]

armies to beat with chaos/tough match ups are eldar [screw over sorc and casters] SW[+4 or +3 dispel] . IG and sm offten run a psychic hood character as second HQ at 1750+pts. This is why offten the sorc is a less optimal option . its a question of kill power , if I am to risk not taking a Demon Prince then the choice needs a goal. demon weapon armed , mount slanesh lords to counter units like ork nobs for example. also the small points difference doesnt work in favor of the sorc. the lord does kill more [well the nurgle one does] and the point difference is really small.

But in the end a DP is better [chance against tanks , no instand death etc] and a lord or sorc only has a place in a LR rush build.

[IronWinds]

Having the Sorceror and the Lord with equal attacks was a dumb move- lord could have used 4.

 

The lord does have 4, so does the sorcerer. FW can be used with a bolt pistol for the extra attack, so you can't increase the sorcerer's attacks. You can only increase the lord's attacks w/ MoK which is why in all our calculations we have included a regular and Khorne lord.

[Prot]

This is a good thread really, but in the end it just pains me to confirm how much I miss our old HQ choices.

 

Moving on....

 

I have Huron as my main man now, and I never felt him quite worth the points, but now that you guys sold me on Warptime a little better, it almost makes sense. Except I have to believe my Daemon Prince with Warp Time would probably make for a pretty impressive graph which takes us back to the question of: why take a lord?

 

I have 3 (yes three) boxes of the Chaos Termie Lord + the Cities of Death Sorcerer Teriminator Lord. THAT'S how cool I think the plastic Termie lord is. Now I'm thinking that thanks to this thread, I may actually put one together (I have an Iron Warrior one, but put them to bed a while ago), and use a Sorcerer in Termie armour.

 

The idea would be to put him with a landraider full of nasties, or a squad of Close Combat Termies (dual claws are pretty cheap). Maybe not a great idea, but at least I feel a Sorcerer Termie with Warp Time isn't a HORRID waste anymore. I don't know, maybe I'm putting too much faith in charts here. :P

[minigun762]

and use a Sorcerer in Termie armour.

 

The idea would be to put him with a landraider full of nasties, or a squad of Close Combat Termies (dual claws are pretty cheap). Maybe not a great idea, but at least I feel a Sorcerer Termie with Warp Time isn't a HORRID waste anymore. I don't know, maybe I'm putting too much faith in charts here. :P

 

One important thing to note, a Sorcerer in Terminator Armor loses 1 attack because they can't count their TL Bolter as a 2nd CCW, so in Terminator Armor the Daemon Weapon/Twin Claw Lord has an advantage.

[Prot]

Ah...of course. That stinks.

[chillin]

I have Huron as my main man now, and I never felt him quite worth the points,

 

I don't know..Huron 170 = lord 90 + PW 15 + PF 25 + per icon 5 + hvy flamer 5 (which no character can have) + WT 25 (which no other lord can have) = 165.

So +5 pts for 2 usefull things that no other character/lord/non-termi can have.? That's gotta be worth it right ?

[Grey Mage]

Having the Sorceror and the Lord with equal attacks was a dumb move- lord could have used 4.

 

The lord does have 4, so does the sorcerer. FW can be used with a bolt pistol for the extra attack, so you can't increase the sorcerer's attacks. You can only increase the lord's attacks w/ MoK which is why in all our calculations we have included a regular and Khorne lord.

4 Base, before marks, two weapon fight, etc. Theres no reason the Sorceror, who has the bonus of powers, should have started out with a nearly identical statline to the Lord. The Lord should have had 4 base, instead of 3 like the sorceror.