Dedicated anti-infantry troop squad

[Requiemnex]

I would back the powerfist as well. I used to run two power weapons in my zerk squads.. I have since stripped them re-armed them and re-painted them. The problem is there are a lot of situations where you are going to wish you had that power fist sadly. I would say 2/3 of the time the power-fist is what makes the unit a real threat... 3 powerfist swings on the charge hitting MOST things on 3s and unless you are attacking an IC of some form you are still hitting most on 4s.. Then wounding on 2s.. Busting armor on 2s / 3s.

[Chengar Qordath]

Wyches... Hmm they arent that scary to be honest. You can... take them on the charge I think. They pretty much pay a lot for their 4+ invulnerable save, which isnt that usefull against a bucket of berzerker attacks.

Of course, the Wyches will always be hitting first, which counts for a fair bit, and then there's the question of how many pain tokens they have and what combat drugs they're using. Give them the right combat drugs and a couple pain tokens, and they can solidly beat Berzerkers in close combat despite costing less than half as much per model. Don't forget that one pain token is also enough to give them Feel No Pain, which makes them a lot more durable against the Berzerker counter-attack.

[Supreme Overlord]

After reading this power weapon/power fist stuff, I've been looking over my list and I am thinking of making some changes.

 

Is it better to have two squads with power weapon Champions, or one squad with a Fisty Champ and one with a bare bones Champion?

[minigun762]

Is it better to have two squads with power weapon Champions, or one squad with a Fisty Champ and one with a bare bones Champion?

 

Well what I've done with the main part of my list is use Fist Champs in the Melta squads and no Champs in the Plasma squads. I take IoCG so either way I have a good enough LD value. I don't know if I'd take a naked Champion though, 15 points for +1LD and +1A just doesn't seem worth it unless he's got a SCCW to use. I suppose you could look into a Combi-Weapon Champion. 2 Flamers plus a C-Flamer Champion would put out alot of hurt for infantry.

[Zhukov]

Wyches... Hmm they arent that scary to be honest. You can... take them on the charge I think. They pretty much pay a lot for their 4+ invulnerable save, which isnt that usefull against a bucket of berzerker attacks.

Of course, the Wyches will always be hitting first, which counts for a fair bit, and then there's the question of how many pain tokens they have and what combat drugs they're using. Give them the right combat drugs and a couple pain tokens, and they can solidly beat Berzerkers in close combat despite costing less than half as much per model. Don't forget that one pain token is also enough to give them Feel No Pain, which makes them a lot more durable against the Berzerker counter-attack.

A couple of pain tokens? Well that means already the assistence of some other unit, which means its a different story. Without pain tokens and Berzerkers charging the whyches wont win I'm pretty sure. They just dont inflict an awefull lot of wounds... If they have pain tokens and they get the charge, then yes the berzerkers are most likely in a lot of trouble.

So really it depends. Which exact squad setup do you compare them with? Because you say they cost half as much, do you not put some weapons on them? You would normally take 20 points of normal weapons + 30 points for the squad leader. Making them 150 points + Raider = about 210 points? Well thats not too far away from our 243 for the Berzerkers.

You also say 'with the right combat drugs', but you cant decide that. You have to roll for it. Allright now I'm interested in doing some math, lets assume they have the +1 attack drugs (not too shabby right?), 2x razorflails and an Agonizer.

 

Berzerkers charge with a full squad against a 10 man squad:

Wyches get 21 normal S3 attacks, 6 with re-roll to hit and to wound, 4 powerweapon attacks; at I6. I think at least, correct me if I'm wrong.

This results into: 3 dead berzerkers on average.

 

Berzerkers hit back: 4 normal guys, 16 attacks; resulting into 4 or 5 dead wyches. 4 Powerfist attacks; resulting into 1 or 2 dead wyches on average.

Score: About 3 dead berzerkers and about 6 dead Wyches. The chances are the Wyches lost their squad leader or some special weapons. Leadership test on Ld6 probably, good chance of failing and as they are below half they ussually wont be able to regroup, or they'll get wiped of course. Maybe combat draws on, berzerkers will most likely win. I did this math without calculator so I might be off a little...

Wyches getting the charge... well I think we can safely assume the berzerkers are going down in this case.

 

So again it depends on the charge. Berzerkers would have had 8 bolt pistols shots maybe too, which would make it even a more sure victory if they go they got the charge. In this case the Powerfist is of course of very little use, 2 extra berzerkers would be much better, but I assumed a normal Berzerker squad.

 

Really on the charge Berzerkers are really really good. If they dont get the charge, then they dont fare well agianst the better CC units; but this goes for almost every unit.