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Mace of redemption or Thunder hammer?


Tiger9gamer

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So, I was thinking about weapon loadouts for some biker characters, and I came to a cross-roads of sorts. Is it better to have a thunder hammer or the Mace of redemption?

 

The character in question is an Interrigator, which would be leading either Black knight or Ravenwing squads. Some pros and cons...

 

Mace:

+is able to have an extra attack with a close combat weapon

+has the off chance to blind someone

+pretty high strength and strikes at initiative

-AP3 against all but one army

-can't instant kill other MEQ's without rad grenades or furious charge warlord trait

 

Hammer:

+high strength that can damage infantry and vehicles

+AP2 against all targets

+can instant kill MEQ's

-can't get an extra attack with another weapon

-strikes last 

If you want him to go anti-infantry, then the mace.  Volume of kills vs. strength of attacks.  It has a potential minor benefit against tougher targets of being able to blind them, but it's not great for taking on hard targets.

 

The Thunder Hammer makes him more potent from an anti-elite/anti-vehicle/anti-MC perspective, but it takes away his initiative and makes him more vulnerable to duels.

 

My advice - look at him in context of the rest of your army and decide what role he'll be playing and go with that.

I think the Mace of Redemption is really the way to go.

 

BK squad: The BKs can get AP2 hits with their Corvus Hammers, making the AP3 of the MOR not such a big deal. Likewise, the Corvus Hammers can get through vehicle armor with rending hits. The BKs also have plasma talons, which give the team an additional AP2/high strength way to deal with hard targets.The downside may be if the squad comes up against a character that has a 2+ save in close combat. However, you probably want someone else dealing with that kind of thing anyway, and I don't think I'd weaken the BK/I-C team's larger effectiveness just to deal with that one contingency. If you leave the corvus hammer on the huntmaster, then he can take a swing at the scary 2+ character while the I-C obliterates his squad.

 

RAS team: With an RAS, I think it gets murkier. Generally, the RAS is not going to be as good at close combat to begin with, so you probably don't want them going into assault with things that would require a thunderhammer - except maybe vehicles. But that could be handled with meltabombs on the sergeant or the I-C. The RAS seems even more likely than the BKs to go after ligther targets, where the MOR will be superior to the thunderhammer. Furthermore, the RAS sergeant can take his own thunderhammer (I think). The MOR, combined with the high initiative of the I-C will just wreck most squads of troops, even power-armored targets.

 

If you want someone who can go after 2+ save characters and ride with your bikes, Sammael is the way to go. Ravensword is the bomb. The I-C, to me, really cries out to wade through grunts with the Mace of Redemption. Plus, it's just so dang thematically appropriate.

 

"REPENT!" *smash*

Well, the MOR should do a decent job against plague marines. Even the thunderhammer won't stop their Feel No Pain saves. The real challenge is the MCs. I think the solution there is to shoot them. A faceful of plasma talon goodness should put the hurt on. And if you get assaulted by one, throw the huntmaster at it first. Then Hit and Run. Then shoot him some more.

 

I don't think you ever want to charge a MC with an RAS. Maybe you could separate your I-C from the squad to do it, but really, going toe-to-toe with MCs with most marine characters is going to be high-risk. If you want something to specifically do that job, I think you might need a real (expensive) death star team: RW command squad with apothecary or standard of fortitude, beatstick character (Sammael or I-C), supporting librarian. Better, I think, to have multiple units that can put high-strength, low AP shooting into them.

well, since he would probably be in a Black Knight squad, I think the rad grenades would help a lot for Toughness values. and I agree with the shooting points. No need to jump in against them.

 

And do you really think the Huntsmaster should have a Corvus hammer? or should he have a mace?

if your mainly fighting CSM, then the Mace is the way to go all the time. The high initiative is a great benefit  and, as you intend to run with a BK squa, rad grenades are no problem, so that means Insta-gib is possible.

 

s7 wounds on 2+ against T5 anyway...meaning Nurgle Marines are not a problem. The only disadvantage is that you will still not be able to insta-kill them, however, with rad grenades your looking at T4 66% of the time anyway.

 

don't rely on the rending with the corvus hammer as it is a 1/6 chance for it to happen. Against nearly every other army, AP3 is fine, and you should not be charging tanks with Bikes tbh...thats what Terminators are for, or meltaguns on normal Bike Squads. He should be munching infantry and plasma Taloning to death any scary infantry.

Why not leave the Huntsmaster as is? The hammers are really good as is IMO. It is the rending that gets me honestly. I don't like messing with a good thing :D

 

As to MoR vs Thunderhammer? MoR. Reason being is you don't want to mess with your IC's Initiative. As a Marine player the highest initiative you'll get is 5. Now back in our last codex we would trade that high initiative for survivability with a TH/SS on most HQs that could legally take it. But now that we have a really good weapon that lets us keep our initiative, and have HQs that are resilient in combat be able to take said weapon, you don't want to mess with his initiative. I know its only AP3 to most of the world, so you put him in a unit of TH/SS Terms or Deathwing Knights. That way they can do the damage to the 2+ guys. 

 

Going last really hurts, it was only an option to do that last codex because it was the only good one.

do you mean the crozius? i am a little confused X-X

Nop a simple power maul, apparently I misread the whole conversation and thought were talking on how to equip the huntsmaster wallbash.gif

I

think he means a power maul on his huntmaster, vs. a mace of

redemption. (When you simply say mace, that may imply MoR, rather than a

power mace, which would be the same thing as a power maul.)

Zactly, there are still people out there who can understand me, yay!

ohhh, okay. I think I'll try the maul next time I run the bikes. yay more wounds!

And instant death after the rad grenades hit. Dont forget the instant death devil.gif

And since the discussion is about H.Qs attached to said squads, yes the mace would make the above trick even more deadly that a standard power maul/crozius.

The Thunder hammer is not so much worth it IMHO for two reasons.

Obviously it hampers you in a challenge, and since you will spray them with rad nades, the Str difference is not so much of an issue.

Both also get stun. Now if it was Str 10 like the Grey knight ones...

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