Two Comparisons of AM Flyers - Mathhammer and Discussion

[gunnyogrady]

EDIT: The second comparison, between the Avenger and the Anti-Tank Vulture, is located a few posts down.

 

Hey folks!

 

A post in the army list forum started me thinking on the relative merits of the Vendetta versus the Vulture w/ TL Punisher Cannons. I decided to generate some mathhammer to compare their abilities. Specifically, I'm taking a look at their role against Monstrous Creatures, Flyers, and Medium Vehicles. I have excluded an analyses of effectiveness against high AV and light infantry units, as the Vendetta and Vulture would naturally excel at these categories respectively, making the analysis a bit of a wash. I'm interested to know which is more effective in the categories for which they overlap: MCs, Flyers, and AV10-12.

 

TL;DR at the end.

 

Unless otherwise stated, all values presented are the average expected shooting.

 

Monstrous Creatures

I'll use the 'nid codex as a bit of a guide here. I have calculated the number of hits, wounds, and saves based on shooting at a target with T6 and a 3+ save, which covers many of the big bugs from the Tyranid codex.

 

Vendetta shooting at the big bug:

2.25 hits

1.88 wounds

No saves allowed

 

1.88 wounds total

 

Vulture shooting at the same bug:

17.78 hits

5.93 wounds

3.95 saves

 

1.98 wounds total

 

So, we can see that there isn't much of an advantage to either bird.

 

Flyers

The mathhammer starts to break down a little here. The Vulture's special rule Vector Dancer allows it to angle after movement, potentially giving it a shot on side/rear armor that the Vendetta might not otherwise have. To keep things as equal as possible, we'll calculate values against AP12, 11, and 10 "in a vacuum," and leave the interpretation for later.

 

The Vendetta shooting against flyer armor:

AV12: 2.25 hits; .38 glances; 1.12 pens; 1.5 hull points total; 20% chance of 'explodes!' result (.75 hull points after jink)

AV11: 2.25 hits; .38 glances; 1.5 pens; 1.88 hull points total; 20% chance of 'explodes!' result (.94 hull points after jink)

AV10: 2.25 hits; .38 glances; 1.85 pens; 2.23 hull points total; 20% chance of 'explodes!' result (1.12 hull points after jink)

 

The Vulture shooting at the same armor:

AV12: N/A

AV11:15 hits; 2.5 glances; 2.5 hull points total; no chance of 'explodes!' result (1.25 hull points after jink)

AV10: 15 hits; 2.5 glances; 2.5 pens; 5 hull points total; no chance of 'explodes!' result (2.5 hull points after jink)

 

Here the difference in numbers is greater than with MCs, but the interpretation no less ambiguous. The Vulture is totally ineffective against AV12, where the Vendetta has a 20% chance of destroying outright, and will reliably remove 1-2 hull points per round of fire.

 

However, the Vulture and Vendetta start to even out against AV11, which both can get fairly easily with good maneuvering. Here, the Vendetta can still destroy the vehicle 20% of the time, but the Vulture removes on-average 2-3 hull points to the Vendetta's 1-2.

 

Against AV10, often rear armor, the Vulture has a distinct advantage: statistically, it will strip 5 hull points per round of shooting. The dice can betray us, of course, but with 20 shots total, the average should occur more reliably. The 3 shots of the Vendetta can still only give us a 20% chance of explosion, and will remove 2-3 hull points on average compared to the 5 hull points removed on average by the Vulture.

 

Of course, all of the values are halved for jink, as indicated above, and this is worth considering.

 

Medium Vehicles

A similar situation to the armor of the flyers above, we'll be looking at the effectiveness of each flyer against AV12, 11, and 10. Worth considering here, the Vulture earns BS4 through the Strafing Run special rule, giving it a slight buff in this case. Also worth noting is the Vector Dancer, which makes it possible for the Vulture to line up side and rear-armor shots more often.

 

Vendetta shooting at Medium Vehicle armor:

AV12: 2.25 hits; .38 glances; 1.12 pens; 1.5 hull points total; 20% chance of 'explodes!'

AV11: 2.25 hits; .38 glances; 1.5 pens; 1.88 hull points total; 20% chance of 'explodes!'

AV10: 2.25 hits; .38 glances; 1.85 pens; 2.23 hull points total; 20% chance of 'explodes!'

 

Vulture shooting at the same target:

AV12: N/A

AV11: 17.78 hits; 2.96 glances; 2.96 hull points total; no chance of 'explodes!'

AV10: 17.78 hits; 2.96 glances; 2.96 pens; 5.93 hull points total; no chance of 'explodes!'

 

The same basic pattern emerges in the data, but more drastically. Again, the Punisher Cannons just can't do anything to AV12. But against AV11 the Vulture strips more Hull Points per turn, and will (on average) glance a 3HP vehicle to death with one round of shooting. Against AV10, the glances are almost a guarantee, with an average of 6HP of damage per round of shooting.

 

Discussion and TL;DR

So we have a lot of mathhammer, and now I'll draw some conclusions.

 

Firstly, the Vendetta will never shred infantry like the Vulture/Punishers. By the same token, the Vulture will never injure AV 12, 13, or 14. That out of the way, we can draw some conclusions about their effectiveness at the targets which they will share:

 

Monstrous Creatures - No Advantage

Against MCs, neither flyer has an advantage. Essentially, the player pays 15 points less for the Vulture, but loses the transport capacity.

 

Flyers - No Advantage/ Slight Advantage Vulture

Against Flyers, the Vendetta has the capability to hurt AV12 which the Vulture simply doesn't have. They also have the ability to make vehicles explode with AP2, which the Vulture cannot do. However, the Vulture may be more likely to get a shot at AV11 and AV10 due to its Vector Dancer special rule. What's more, the Vulture does more hull points of damage against these armor values than the Vendetta, due to the sheer weight of shots/hits.

 

The Vulture deals 1.25/2.5 hull points of damage against AV11/10, compared to the Vendetta's .94/1.12 against the same armor. So this field is another wash: with good rolling, either could destroy a vehicle. The Vulture might claim a small advantage due to the law of averages -- with all those dice, the player will roll the average more often, providing a more reliable death-by-glancing at the lower AV.

 

Medium Vehicles - Slight Advantage Vulture

In this category as well, the Vendetta has the ability to damage AV12 and a chance to make vehicles explode. However, the advantages the Vulture claims when shooting against flyers get even better when shooting against ground targets. The Vulture benefits from the Strafing Run special rule (BS4), and can still get the side- and rear-armor shots against vehicles with Vector Dancer.

 

Against AV11, the Vulture gets almost 3 hull points per round of firing. Against AV10, it gets almost double that. By comparison, the Vendetta gets only 1.9 and 2.23 hull points against AV 11 and 10 respectively. This means that the Vulture will reliably glance an HP3 vehicle to death with a single round of shooting against AV11, and get 2-3 overflow HP of damage against AV10.

 

Additional Factors to Consider

1) The Vulture costs 15 points less

2) The Vulture can maneuver to get side- and rear-armor shots more often than the Vendetta

3) The Vulture will roll the average values more often due to the law of averages (rolling more dice)

 

4) The Vendetta has transport capacity

5) The Vendetta can damage AV12+, and can make vehicles explode outright

6) The penetrating hits caused by the Lascannon can also shake, stun, weapon-destroy, or immobilize vehicle targets; in a vehicle vs vehicle "duel" situation, this gives a huge edge if the opponent's vehicle is unable to move/shoot/respond in their next turn.

 

So while I can't make a general recommendation from the data, I know I will continue to take Vultures instead of Vendettas. A player with less long-range AT in their list might choose Vendettas, as might a player with less transport capacity.

 

Does this information change anybody's opinions? Have I left out some glaring information from the 7th ed rules? What do y'all think?

 

Thanks for reading,

 

-O'Grady

[Carraigf]

Nice write up O'Grady, I haven't added any flyers to my force yet as I'm not long returned to the hobby, but certainly will add some wings in the near future.

 

Nice to see a mathhammer that looks at all the options rather than 'this layout is best as it will melt the most meq'.

[Truesight]

Given the diversity of their strengths would it be worthwhile then to invest in one of each?

It seems like neither is definitively better.

[gunnyogrady]

Thanks Carraigf! I'm glad the math-hammering didn't seem too biased/sloppy.

 

I'm a little new getting back into the hobby as well - I was doing some analysis of my old unit choices, and figured the comparison could be useful to others.

 

Admittedly, I am biased towards using the Vulture, but I can see why people choose the Vendetta. I'm always just so nervous with those three lonely dice, haha. With fewer dice, so much can go wrong.

 

-O'Grady

[gunnyogrady]

Truesight, it is a little bit of a "I'll compare apples to oranges with math!" situation.

 

For me, I have to treat whichever flyer I take as my primary Anti-Air unit as well as whatever other purpose it accomplishes on the battlefield. This is because I'm not a huge fan of the conventional AM skyfire/Anti-Air options (Hydra, Icarus, Quad-Gun) , so I have to look to my flyers to negate the need for Skyfire.

 

As the Mathhammer showed, the Vulture is just a little bit better against flyers if it can line up the AV11/10 shots, and I'm confident in my ability to maneuver into such positions.

 

To answer your question directly, I've written up a list with 2 Vultures with TL Punishers for my own 1850 army. It remains to be seen how that does in playtesting.

 

-O'Grady

[Frater Cornelius]

My thought is to take neither. They still.cost quite the buck for a limited output. They are at the mercy of reserve rolls and the models are quite big, making maneuvering them a big pain. For the price of one bird I can get two Hydras shooting at skimmers and flyers and drive around scoring and body blocking when there is nothing to shoot. Much more utlity.

 

If you are hellbent on getting one, I would skip the Vulture. S5 is rather schizophrenic. It can not deal with anything reliably. If you want to hunt tanks and flyers, get Vendetta. If you want to hunt infantry, get a Valkyrie. Or better yet, get the Stormwing formation :P

[WarriorFish]

I think it's a good write up of the differences between them. Nothing new for my assessments but good to see the numbers behind it. As Immer said coming in from reserves is also something to consider as a foil to the increased mobility.

[CyderPirate]

Great write-up Gunny.

 

Didn't really change my mind, but will help me remember what I should be pointing them at. I've lost a few campaign games because I've been trying (unsuccessfully) to mow down marines with the Vulture, when I should have been using it to take out support vehicles. When I've actually used it to go after transports and light/medium tanks, it was basically deleting one a turn :D

[march10k]

There's something critical missing from the analysis...it's true that the vendetta can get a pen-7 and the vulture cannot, and that the vendetta can hurt AV12-14...but it's almost more important that most of the damaging hits from the vendetta are going to be penetrating hits.  If you fail to kill, your target is almost certainly not shooting back, and may not be moving...at least next turn, which may be all you need.  Case in point, in a  duel between pasquisher and longstrike, whoever gets off the first shot is nearly 100% certain to win without taking return fire, even if it takes three turns to finish the job.  A penetrating hit that fails to kill the target outright is often dismissed as "a hull point," but in fact it's far more!

[Jacinda]

I don't see it as trying to pick which one is best. Best is always subjective. However it is good to know what they all can do so you can pick the right tool for the job.

Since I live in a house with a Space Wolf nut that loves her new Stormfang, it makes my decision on which tool to use easy.

[librisrouge]

That would simplify things.

 

Request, mind doing the mathhammer for a Vulture with TL Lascannon and two braces of Hunter Killer Missiles (so it can fire three missiles, a TL lascannon, and snap fire a heavy bolter for two turns before being limited to the later two guns.) Part of me has always wanted to run that setup but I haven't because of a lack of models and focus on other projects.

[gunnyogrady]

March10k, that is a very good point. I'll add that into the additional considerations at the end.

 

Librisrouge, I'll do a write-up of the Hunter Killer Vulture!

 

-O'Grady

[casb1965]

There's something critical missing from the analysis...it's true that the vendetta can get a pen-7 and the vulture cannot, and that the vendetta can hurt AV12-14...but it's almost more important that most of the damaging hits from the vendetta are going to be penetrating hits.  If you fail to kill, your target is almost certainly not shooting back, and may not be moving...at least next turn, which may be all you need.  Case in point, in a  duel between pasquisher and longstrike, whoever gets off the first shot is nearly 100% certain to win without taking return fire, even if it takes three turns to finish the job.  A penetrating hit that fails to kill the target outright is often dismissed as "a hull point," but in fact it's far more!

 

Yepa penetrating hit and "immobilized" result on a flyer is far better than 2 hull points of damage

[gunnyogrady]

PART II

Avenger VS AT-Vulture

 

Just swinging the mathhammer at another couple of vehicles here. Instead of the Vendetta and Vulture-with-Punisher comparison, I'll now take a look at the relative merits of two very similar flyer builds available to the AM:

 

Vulture

-6x Hunter-Killer Missiles

-TL Lascannon

 

Avenger

-Avenger Bolt Cannon

-2x Lascannon

 

Again, we'll start with a few assumptions about the natural strengths of each flyer, and then move into the targets which both birds share. In this comparison, we're only going to check the difference between MCs and Flyer-armor, as you shall soon see why.

 

As a word of warning: because both flyers are shooting multiple weapons with crucially different AP values, the mathhammer gets pretty extensive when it comes to calculating hit/glance/pen/destroyed totals against vehicles.

 

As per usual, skip to the end for the TL;DR summary.

 

Assumptions/Givens

The Avenger has a distinct advantage against infantry, specifically against MEQs and below. It has Strafing Run just like the Vulture, granting BS4 against ground targets.

 

The Vulture has some advantage against higher AV. The Vulture also has Strafing Run, but has Vector Dancer as well, further aiding in this unit's role as anti-armor and -flyer.

 

However, unlike the Vendetta vs. Punisher-Vulture comparison above, the Avenger still has considerable AT capability. It can harm AV12+ with both the Bolt Cannon and Lascannons.

 

What remains to be seen is how the extra volume of shots from the Avenger compares to the high-strength, low-AP weapons on the Vulture. 

 

Monstrous Creatures

We'll use our ambiguous T6 3+ Save Monstrous Creature from before.

 

Shooting all of its weapons at the beast, the AT-Vulture would get:

1.33 Hunter Killer Hit

.89 Lascannon Hits

1.85 Wounds

No Saves Allowed

 

1.85 Wounds Total

 

Shooting at the same MC, the Avenger would yield:

1 Lascannon Hit

4.67 Bolt Cannon Hits

3.17 Wounds

No Saves Allowed

 

3.17 Wounds Total

 

So, we see here that the Avenger has a distinct advantage over the AT-Vulture when it comes to shooting at MCs.

 

Flyers

Again, to keep things even, we'll simply calculate shots against armor values of 12, 11, and 10.

 

The AT-Vulture against a Flyer would get:

AV12

Lascannon hits: .75

Lascannon pens: .38

 

Hunter-Killer hits: 1

Hunter-Killer pens: .33

 

Total Glances: .29

Total Destroyed Results: .12

 

AV11

Lascannon hits: .75

Lascannon pens: .5

 

Hunter-Killer hits: 1

Hunter-Killer pens: .5

 

Glances total: .29

Destroyed Results: .17

 

AV10

Lascannon hits: .75

Lascannon pens: .62

 

Hunter-Killer hits: 1

Hunter-Killer pens: .67

 

Glances total: .29

Destroyed Results: .21

 

As if all of those number weren't enough – we're only halfway done with flyers! Here's the Avenger against the same target:

AV12

Bolt Cannon hits: 3.5

Bolt Cannon pens: 0

 

Lascannon hits: 1

Lascannon pens: .5

 

Glances total: .75

Destroyed Results: .13

 

AV11

Bolt Cannon hits: 3.5

Bolt Cannon pens: .58

 

Lascannon hits: 1

Lascannon pens: .67

 

Glances total: .75

Destroyed Results: .22

 

AV10

Bolt Cannon hits: 3.5

Bolt Cannon pens: 1.17

 

Lascannon hits: 1

Lascannon pens: .83

 

Glances total: .75

Destroyed Results: .40

 

So, we can see that neither bird is particullarly well-equipped to handle other flyers. Becasue of the comparatively low volume of shots from both units, neither model can strip more than 1 hull point consistently per turn, and the better of the two shooting at AV10 will still only cause .4 of a destroyed result.

 

Conclusions

Instead of going through the entire process above but with BS4 instead of BS3, I'll extrapolate some conclusions about how both units would fare against ground-targets. I started to crunch the numbers, and to put it bluntly, both units would continue to do pretty abysmally, especially when compared to the Vendetta or the Punisher-Vulture.

 

Speaking of which, I think the best way to make a conclusion about these two flyers is to put them up against their counterparts from the first mathhammer, above.

 

First, we'll compare the Avenger to the Punisher-Vulture. Due to the sheer volume of shots, the Vulture with TL Punisher cannons will fare better than the Avenger when it comes to shooting other flyers and light armor. However, due to the higher strength and AP of the Bolt Cannon, the Avenger will deal over one and a half times more wounds than the Vulture. We can also conclude that the Avenger would do better against MEQs, but we already knew that.

 

So against MCs and MEQs, take an Avenger. Against Flyers, Medium Vehicles, and Hordes, take a Punisher-Vulture.

 

Next, we'll take a look at the AT-Vulture versus the Vendetta. To put it simply, the Vendetta outperforms the Vulture in every category. The comparison is fairly obvious: the Vendetta gets to fire three twin-linked Lascannons. The Vulture gets to fire one TL Lascannon and two more weapons with lower strength and higher AP, not twin-linked. What's more, the Vulture runs out of these secondary weapons in three turns. AT-Vulture is simply not a good choice when you could spend 10 points more and get noticeably better anti-tank capability. If that wasn't enough, the AT-Vulture performs worse than both the Avenger and the Punisher-Vulture when it comes to MCs, Flyers, and Medium Vehicles.

 

Basically, leave it at home. Take a Vendetta. Enjoy the extra transport space.

 

Additional Considerations

1) The AT-Vulture still has Vector Dancer, giving it side- and rear-armor more often. (not that it helps, really)

2) The Avenger out-performs both the Vulture and the Vendetta when it comes to MCs and MEQs

3) Neither flyer scores enough glancing or penetrating hits per turn (on average) to consistently immobilize or destroy any kind of vehicle. That being said, it's essentially a dice-game, so you can get lucky. Just don't count on it, because the odds are well below average.

 

TL;DR

Monstrous Creatures – Strong Advantage Avenger

The Avenger outperforms the AT-Vulture, and also the Punisher-Vulture and Vendetta. In fact, it scores 1.6 times more wounds per turn than the next best flyer against MCs. Take one in tandem with a Punisher-Vulture and watch your opponent not know what to shoot.

 

Flyers – Advantage NEITHER

Due to the low volume of shots and lack of twin-linking, neither the Avenger nor the AT-Vulture does well at taking on Flyers. If you want to handle your opponent's flyers with a flyer of your own, then refer to the previous mathhammer and make a decision based on that.

 

Medium Vehicles – Advantage NEITHER

Again, even with BS4 from Strafing Run, neither flyer really does well in this role. Stick with either the Punisher-Vulture or the Vendetta, or the autocannons I'm sure you have somewhere.

 

-O'Grady

[librisrouge]

Great numbers man, however it's seems the Vulture was only shooting two missiles a turn. It can do three at full BS. Not hard to estimate the difference though.

[gunnyogrady]

Can it really? I thought vehicles could only fire two missile-type weapons per turn?

[librisrouge]

Yeah, they ditched that rule in 7th edition. Now it is just four weapons a turn. Technically, the vulture could fire all the missile and a heavy bolter, but three missile and the heavy bolter would be snap firing (worth it on the heavy bolter but a waste on one-shot missiles.) Of course, you'd use on of the weapons on your TL Lascannon.

[gunnyogrady]

Well spank my booty and call me an old-timey prospector! 

 

I'll revise the math when I get a second.

[march10k]

Another consideration is that the avenger has access to an extensive suite of  bonus weapon upgrades...as mentioned, you can fire up to four weapons per turn...adding a pair of anything gives you five, so you're going to be overpaying, but if effectiveness is more important than efficiency...?  My avenger has a pair of missile launchers for 40 points...OUCH, that's a lot of points, especially with the krak missile nerf of not being able to get an "explodes" result.  Still, you can fire one of the two potential missiles and still fire both lascannons and the bolt cannon, and on the off chance that you're facing AV14, you have four shots that have a chance to do something instead of just two...probably not worth it, but if a future edition raises the number of weapons you can shoot, it will be.  In the meantime, I just don't pay for the "decorative" missile launchers...but I'm not ripping them off...rule of cool, and all...