Ad Mech in 8th Edition

[MithrilForge]

Just had a 1000point game:

1 neutron laser onager

1 Icarus onager

1 tech priest dominus w/ erad Ray and phosphor serpenta

10 ranged epriests

5 man skitarii ranger 2TA s and an omnispex

Another of the above

1 Lascannon ironstrider

1 Sydonian dragoon with radium jezzail.

 

Not fantastic. Neutron laser only shot once for three turns, Icarus array helped slaughter some chimeras.

 

Lascannon helped take various vehicles down.

 

Epriests murdered five ratlings turn one, died to return fire via lasgun volleys.

 

Sniper squads were meh, mildly helping glance down vehicles, no mortal wounds rolled. Galvanic Rifles took a couple of guardsmen out.

 

Tech priest did very little than provide rerolls and healed two wounds. He was terrible vs vehicles in CC, he couldn't kill a hellhound after three combat turns.

 

Rad snipers ended up not having characters to snipe so sucked vs transports.

 

 

To be honest, I can see heavy stubbers on onagers doing more hurt than skitarii infantry squads ever do, for their points. Spam onagers with cheap guns and heavy stubbers methinks. Heavy phosphor blaster would have been fantastic that game to root out infantry and help hurt vehicles.

 

good work....but...may i suggest to use that army for another 10 games then come back and give us your feedback,(seriously)without being rude   your data will be more reliable after more extensive play...i do look fwd to the results though, as your using choices that i believe will be useful in this edition 

 

cheers, Mithril

[lancerusso]

 

 

Just had a 1000point game:

1 neutron laser onager

1 Icarus onager

1 tech priest dominus w/ erad Ray and phosphor serpenta

10 ranged epriests

5 man skitarii ranger 2TA s and an omnispex

Another of the above

1 Lascannon ironstrider

1 Sydonian dragoon with radium jezzail.

 

Not fantastic. Neutron laser only shot once for three turns, Icarus array helped slaughter some chimeras.

 

Lascannon helped take various vehicles down.

 

Epriests murdered five ratlings turn one, died to return fire via lasgun volleys.

 

Sniper squads were meh, mildly helping glance down vehicles, no mortal wounds rolled. Galvanic Rifles took a couple of guardsmen out.

 

Tech priest did very little than provide rerolls and healed two wounds. He was terrible vs vehicles in CC, he couldn't kill a hellhound after three combat turns.

 

Rad snipers ended up not having characters to snipe so sucked vs transports.

 

 

To be honest, I can see heavy stubbers on onagers doing more hurt than skitarii infantry squads ever do, for their points. Spam onagers with cheap guns and heavy stubbers methinks. Heavy phosphor blaster would have been fantastic that game to root out infantry and help hurt vehicles.

good work....but...may i suggest to use that army for another 10 games then come back and give us your feedback,(seriously)without being rude your data will be more reliable after more extensive play...i do look fwd to the results though, as your using choices that i believe will be useful in this edition

 

cheers, Mithril

Oh, definitely. Just giving data for one game in particular. My shooting just felt underwhelming in that game. Before it has felt overwhelming vs necrons and space marines. Guard seemed a tough nut to crack for some reason. I lacked good LoS too.

 

 

What really ticks me off this ed is that skitarii troopers with the canticle or a tech priest have the exact same to hit chance as a guard veteran squad with an order. It's nuts: the highest tech cybernetic soldier of the imperium, with integrated optics and datafeeds and stable prosthetics are as accurate as some mundane veterans being asked or shouted at to shoot more accurately by their commander?

 

It's just futile.

[MithrilForge]

@lancerusso - lets hope that when the datasheets?/codex?/army book? comes along that some of the initial shortcomings will be balanced out   ...

i see your point even from a fluffwise standpoint too,including the "no transport thing" and really they should be uber shooting Machines!!! 

 

Cheers, Mithril

[Suzuteo]

I did some mathhammer on Ad-mech:

 

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1fGhXLPCfRTNsB_qbRh7noPGRr-iYDUxoRlIIrzK8D2c/edit?usp=sharing

 

 

It's a roster of most of what Ad-Mech has available and how models with these weapons perform shooting against different targets.

 

By scrolling to the right you can see how the unit performs with the different to-hit buffs. (i.e. re-roll 1s from dominus/canticles; re-roll misses from cawl)

 

It produces: 

 

expected wounds per turn

expected wounds/turn/point

 

Then I decided to try and weight weapons based on their range profiles. First I assumed the enemy is at ranges: 36", 27", 18", 9". This lets rapid fire weapons eventually get some benefit. For some weapons I just took the range and divided it by 9 to get about the right scale factor. Mostly because I thought this underrated weapons with 24" and 30" range. This cancels out the "turn" unit in wounds/turn/pt and produces one efficiency rating of just Wounds/pt

 

Then I took the approximate wounds and points of the target to cancel out the units of wounds (inflicted) and points (cost of your model).

 

i.e. (Expected Inflicted Wounds per turn * Expected Turns Firing / Friendly Points) * (Target Points / Target Wounds)

 

which is a unit-less measure of determining if you are in a good target match-up.

 

The major takeaways are:

 

A: Arm your dunecrawlers with Neutron Lasers and Icarus Arrays. I decided not to include the cognis heavy stubbers in points or damage (as they would be firing at different targets than the big guns) but you definitely want to bring them.

 

B: Buffed up Edward Phosphor hands are super good. This is really our only effective counter to GEQ spam. (Note that I tried to count the cost of the datasimth into this robot profile by adding 25 pts/ so about 1 for every 2 robots)

 

C: Cawl's re-roll buff is a 1.5x buff for 4+ to-hit, 1.33x buff for 3+ to hit. So make sure to put him in a ball with your Icarus Arrays, Phosphor Hands, and destroyers.

 

D: Ironstriders with Lascannons are really good, despite being a strange mix of fast attack and artillery.

 

E: Rad-carbines and Galvanic Rifles are pretty bad. Arc rifles are WAY worse than plasma calivers. 

 

The main problem with our infantry is they just cost too much for how fragile they are. I made a little durability metric of W*T*(Sv multiplier)/pts. The save multiplier is the number of 0AP shots it takes to get 1 shot through. This definitely overrates the durability of vehicles relative to infantry, (as vehicles will draw the ire of high damage, high AP shots), but it does ok at comparing similar units.

 

I.e. Rad Carbine Vanguard have a durability of 0.6 while guard: 1.13

Conscripts: 1.5

Marine: 0.92

 

This makes rad carbines a bad meatshield for the plasma calivers. 

 

Destroyers and Breachers are also glass cannons. And they are exposed to being eviscerated by multidamage attacks.

 

I think the best strategy will probably be to bring a 300ish point screening battalion of guard. Like:

 

4 units of guard/conscripts

1 commander

1 commisar

1 greyfax (provide leadership, anti psykic)

(+a cheap 3 command points!)

 

 

 

I'm making a similar sort of sheet for melee combat but it's not there yet. 

 

There are certainly loads of mistakes, but it gets the idea across I think.

 

Also the supercharged plasma culverin on a destroyer looks like it has terrific stats, but you probably don't want to risk it. Especially not re-rolling NON-1s. 

 

 

Edit: Actually I think I'm probably selling vanguard a little short. You can always get turn 1 shrowdpsalm for a universal cover save, and get it 75% of the time after that with Cawl/command re-roll. (I think people are really underrating canticles compared to the old doctrina). Then if you manage to get just the Alpha and some stragglers into melee you can get a lot out of rad poisoning combined with strength of the machine spirit for -1 enemy toughness and +1 allied strength. Throw some power sword infiltrators in there and you can get a turn of infiltrators cutting through toughness and armor.

 

Edit Edit: The first edit was fraudulent, as I mostly ctrl-c'd this from a post I had made on Dakka Dakka. But I lacked the editing skill to incorporate it into the main body of the post.

This is a really cool resource.

 

I have some feedback:

1) I would not try to weight weapon range, especially not as a linear relationship. A 96" range weapon is not 2x effective as a 48" range weapon, 4x as a 24" gun, 8x as a 12" gun, etc.

2) I edited this three times. Brainfried.

 

I think you are underscoring Vanguard in some fields.

 

You have it down as (1-toWnd) + 2*toWnd. Let's use 33% as an example.

 

(2/3) + 2*(1/3) = 1.33

 

This says there is a 67% chance to deal 1 wound, 33% chance to deal 2 wounds. However, a 33% chance to wound means 5+, so the only viable rolls are 5 or 6--a 50% chance to deal 2.

 

I think it should be (6*toWnd-1)/(6*toWnd) + 2/(6*toWnd) = (6*toWnd+1)/(6*toWnd)

 

(1/2) + (2/2) = 1.5

 

Sorry. Might be overthinking it. And I could just be totally wrong. Someone check my math.

 

 

Strength 8, Ap0, 2 damage is a pretty bizarre profile. 

 

Maybe good against chaos demons and only chaos demons?

I would try to avoid rock-paper-scissor thinking. Models have roles beyond how much damage they can output, and it's impossible to react to every conceivable situation. Instead, we should try to focus on making our own game plan work and have your opponents sweating us.

 

Anyhow, from what I have seen, our best units seem to be long-ranged Heavy Support units. Triple Phosphor Kastelans are pretty damn broken. They do well vs everything, but are especially good at murdering GEQs and MEQs. Neutron Crawlers pretty much cover the heaviest units that the Kastelans may struggle with it. And these guys get healed by a cadre of Dominus and Datasmith every turn.

 

What are our opponent's responses to this? Well, we don't want to move, and we don't want to assault. So close in and take out our artillery in short-range shooting and CC or outmaneuver us and grab objectives. This is where Dragoons shine. I think they are average in stats and point efficiency, but they are currently our only tools for mobile skirmishing and objective grabbing. (Well, maybe Infiltrators and Ironstriders, but these guys are pricier as units and have quirks.)

 

EDIT: Oh, but to answer your question: They do well against middle-weight models like MEQ to Terminators--really, anything multi-wound and low save. So outside of assault, Kastelans are pretty much better in every way. Haha.

 

@lancerusso - lets hope that when the datasheets?/codex?/army book? comes along that some of the initial shortcomings will be balanced out   ...

i see your point even from a fluffwise standpoint too,including the "no transport thing" and really they should be uber shooting Machines!!! 

 

Cheers, Mithril

We used to be so much more mobile: Crusader, Scout, Relentless, Dunestrider. I was really drawn to the mobile gun line concept. Now we're pretty much an artillery army. If you don't got legs or 36"+ range, you're probably a tax. 

Edited June 13, 2017 by Suzuteo

[Steerpike_]

 

 

I think you are underscoring Vanguard in some fields.

 

You have it down as (1-toWnd) + 2*toWnd. Let's use 33% as an example.

 

(2/3) + 2*(1/3) = 1.33

 

This says there is a 67% chance to deal 1 wound, 33% chance to deal 2 wounds. However, a 33% chance to wound means 5+, so the only viable rolls are 5 or 6--a 50% chance to deal 2.

 

I think it should be (6*toWnd-1)/(6*toWnd) + 2/(6*toWnd) = (6*toWnd+1)/(6*toWnd)

 

(1/2) + (2/2) = 1.5

 

Sorry. Might be overthinking it. And I could just be totally wrong. Someone check my math.

 

 

 

Oh yeah. I don't think I applied the rad carbine 2 damage special rule or the galvanic rifle -1 AP special rule correctly everywhere.

 

As for scaling weapons based on range, I agree that the relationship isn't really linear. There's a chance that (with deepstrike ect.) all of your weapons will be able to fire from turn 1 (making the relationship worse than linear). There's also a chance that your opponent will spam artillery and never allow you to get within 2 ft (making the relationship better than linear).

 

Assault weapons also provide a certain utility I didn't account for. Your threat bubble for a plasma caliver is 18"+6"+1/6" = 25/30".

 

The Onagers get terrific mobility though with the 48" guns being able to maneuver 8" a turn while firing at full BS. 

 

You also need troops which advance and claim objectives, which gives them value independent of any firepower they provide.

 

 

 

 

You know what would be a really fun army? Assault Kastelans. They can march up the table with 9-14" advance a turn, with a charge turn range of 9-21" inches! So an expected 12.5" and 15". And they advance under an invulnerable save of 4++, with 5++ reflecting mortal wounds back onto the shooter. 

 

If a model is nearing its final wound you can switch to a 1+ armor save once shroudpsalm and aegis protocol are considered. (1 will still fail, but so much for your boltguns, bolt rifles or heavy bolters finishing it off). Which will help you survive to get a D3 heal. 

 

Then, when in combat they can switch to fighting twice protocol. Bringing them in units of 3 also lets you keep your number of HS units low and makes it really easy for the datasmiths to change their protocol. There's no rule that you can't try to change the protocol again if you fail the first time, and it is really difficult to try and snipe out all smiths. 

 

Units of 3 are probably better than units of 6 as you want to force your opponent to spread out the wounds once you get into combat so the smiths can get more heals in. 

 

THEN you can use your re-roll 1s to hit in CC canticle for a 0.58 to-hit probability. 

 

I haven't ran all the numbers, but that sounds... erotic.

Edited June 13, 2017 by Steerpike_

[Steerpike_]

Blam

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1tU8htjzuK-gTh-FOrddvXwLxFsbqWzNv7oMYMh7gS6s/edit?usp=sharing

 

The efficiency rating is now just "to what extent does this model pay for itself in a turn of close combat"

 

Major takeaways:

 

Power swords are in. 

 

Power sword Infiltrators are pretty good. Better than ruststalkers in melee, with the added benefit of having deepstrike AND pistols.

 

Ruststalkers really need something. -1 to hit against would be nice. Bizarre that they don't get deep strike from stalking or something.

 

I just realized that datasmiths are almost exactly terminators. Except with twice as many wounds and can also wispier to robots. For 4 more points.

 

Rock em sock em robots look good.

 

Staff priests look super good. Getting them across the table will definitely be a challenge though.

Edited June 13, 2017 by Steerpike_

[Suzuteo]

Blam

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1tU8htjzuK-gTh-FOrddvXwLxFsbqWzNv7oMYMh7gS6s/edit?usp=sharing

 

The efficiency rating is now just "to what extent does this model pay for itself in a turn of close combat"

 

Major takeaways:

 

Power swords are in. 

 

Power sword Infiltrators are pretty good. Better than ruststalkers in melee, with the added benefit of having deepstrike AND pistols.

 

Ruststalkers really need something. -1 to hit against would be nice. Bizarre that they don't get deep strike from stalking or something.

 

I just realized that datasmiths are almost exactly terminators. Except with twice as many wounds and can also wispier to robots. For 4 more points.

 

Rock em sock em robots look good.

 

Staff priests look super good. Getting them across the table will definitely be a challenge though.

I think you forgot to add weapon costs to a lot of these guys. For example, Ballistarii have 75 points minimum and Taser Dragoons 68.

 

On that point, Taser Dragoons have 3 attacks, and the Taser Lance gives them +3 Strength. =P

[DeStinyFiSh]

Can someone explain to me how Litany of the Electromancer works now?

Is it only once per Battle Round as soon as it gets activated? Kind of sux if yes...

[Vel'Cona]

So are Taser Goad Infiltrators crummy now?  I hope not, there the only version I have painted up . . . :(

[DeStinyFiSh]

So are Taser Goad Infiltrators crummy now?  I hope not, there the only version I have painted up . . .

 

I think they are still better than the swords... basically nothing has changed for the weapons from 7th to 8th edition, or am I wrong?

The Stubcarbine got a little better now than the Flechette Blaster, but not too much I guess.

[Steerpike_]

So are Taser Goad Infiltrators crummy now?  I hope not, there the only version I have painted up . . .

 

I wouldn't call them crummy. 

 

I'm min maxing here. 

 

Taser goad infiltrators are better against T3 bad save (GEQ) or T5 mid save (Bikes or destroyers or tyrant guard) targets. They're far better against ork boyz.

 

Sword infiltrators however are substantially better against marines, terminators, and most vehicles. 

 

Swarm armies look pretty scary though. And Goad Infiltrators with flechette blasters are perhaps one of our best anti swarm options.

 

 

Our best option though is by far and away buffed triple phosphor kastelans in a Cawl star. To the point that they probably need to get nerfed. 

 

The main issue though is that I don't have any robots!

Edited June 14, 2017 by Steerpike_

[Odds.043]

Has anyone noticed how strange it is that cawl and a Dominus make the benediction of omniscience effectively pointless to all units within 6 inches of them? It seems strange to me, almost like benediction of omnisciencephalitis should have been something else.

 

It's strange to me mainly due to the fact that any unit in your army that is going to want that canticle will probably already be next to cawl or a Dominus, and that is the only canticle as far as I can tell, that is so easily made obsolete.

Edited June 14, 2017 by Odds.043

[Steerpike_]

Can someone explain to me how Litany of the Electromancer works now?

Is it only once per Battle Round as soon as it gets activated? Kind of sux if yes...

 

I see it as being pretty rare that you'd pick litany of the Electromancer over Invocation of Machine Might or Chant of the Remorseless Fist once you are locked in melee. As the other two buffs affect your and your opponent's fight phase. However it might come in handy during CC if your opponent has some sort of cheesy character spam list. 

 

1/3 of a mortal wound against each enemy unit in close combat isn't that bad.

Has anyone noticed how strange it is that cawl and a Dominus make the benediction of omniscience effectively pointless to all units within 6 inches of them? It seems strange to me, almost like benediction of omnisciencephalitis should have been something else.

 

It's strange to me mainly due to the fact that any unit in your army that is going to want that canticle will probably already be next to cawl or a Dominus, and that is the only canticle as far as I can tell, that is so easily made obsolete.

 

Yeah Shroudpsalm is clearly 100x better. Especially because the force organization charts compel us to saturate our armies with Dominos.

Edited June 14, 2017 by Steerpike_

[Subtle Discord]

Has anyone noticed how strange it is that cawl and a Dominus make the benediction of omniscience effectively pointless to all units within 6 inches of them? It seems strange to me, almost like benediction of omnisciencephalitis should have been something else.

 

It's strange to me mainly due to the fact that any unit in your army that is going to want that canticle will probably already be next to cawl or a Dominus, and that is the only canticle as far as I can tell, that is so easily made obsolete.

 

You're looking at that from a 'the glass is half empty' perspective. While you're correct that Cawl and the Dominus provided the re-roll 1's to hit in Shooting, their bubble is still limited and there are plenty of elements of the army that can't/won't cluster around a HQ all fight. While it likely won't be a first choice Canticle, being able to expand the re-roll to the entire table for a turn seems useful to me.

[gilt_imp]

Due to the sniper/rifle ability to target characters, I’ve been comparing some units from various lists.

I’m thinking that the Vindicare assassin is probably best but am thinking that the Skitarii Rangers 5 man unit with 2 TA comes second. Their ability to include an omnispex and the guns range are two nice bonuses. Just the few battle reports seen so far don’t have them doing much.

 

It’s interesting that most lists (or at least Imperial lists) I’ve seen all include a sniper capability somehow to allow your faction to target characters.

 

In a mixed army I also like those Ratling snipers (Astra Militarum) for their cheap cost and shoot run/hide ability. Strangely enough in a couple battle reports they didn’t do a lot either.

 

 

Has anyone else compared snipers in Imperial lists? Do Ad Mech Rangers still rate pretty high?

[clanfield]

but canticles are not picked they are a d6 roll so cawl and domi aura is a controlled space you 100% have vs might have

 

I think 5 man rangers with 2x ta is the best use of the weapon the ability to pick out specific models is great tool in the box

 

I believe the way to run in 8th is definatly more body's lest super units

[Gothical]

but canticles are not picked they are a d6 roll so cawl and domi aura is a controlled space you 100% have vs might have

 

 

You can choose whether to pick your Canticles or roll for them - the former allows you to choose the specific one you want each turn but only once per game, the latter allows you to repeat the same Canticle if you happen to roll it but is in the lap of the gods.

[Odds.043]

You're looking at that from a 'the glass is half empty' perspective. While you're correct that Cawl and the Dominus provided the re-roll 1's to hit in Shooting, their bubble is still limited and there are plenty of elements of the army that can't/won't cluster around a HQ all fight. While it likely won't be a first choice Canticle, being able to expand the re-roll to the entire table for a turn seems useful to me.

I see what your getting at, but a 6 inch radius bible is plenty space to get all your main guns fit in, and with how much we're encouraged to bring additional HQ's in bigger armies, it is more likely than not that you will have more than enough domini/cawl to blanket you whole army. Remember you only need one model from the unit within 6" of the HQ to get that bonus.

 

My point was given hiw easy that is, the cantickets seems strangely usekess: anything that wants to get shooting reroll is going to be screening your hq, or have an HQ babysitting them (in the case of Dunecrawlers). Maybe balistarii would get some benefit from it, but their the only unit that is really designed as a super fast mobile weapons platform. All our other vehicles are slow enought that our hq's can keep up with them.

 

You're also passively discouraged from having hq's too close together, since none of their ablitzes really stack. So you end up with those 6" bubbles in all your key gun lines anyway.

[Charlo]

 

but canticles are not picked they are a d6 roll so cawl and domi aura is a controlled space you 100% have vs might have

 

 

You can choose whether to pick your Canticles or roll for them - the former allows you to choose the specific one you want each turn but only once per game, the latter allows you to repeat the same Canticle if you happen to roll it but is in the lap of the gods.

 

Exactly!

 

You can choose Benediction & Shroud for the first two turns and then with Cawl on the board you have a really decent chance of getting what you want when rolling in later turns.

[Magos Takatus]

 

 

but canticles are not picked they are a d6 roll so cawl and domi aura is a controlled space you 100% have vs might have

 

 

You can choose whether to pick your Canticles or roll for them - the former allows you to choose the specific one you want each turn but only once per game, the latter allows you to repeat the same Canticle if you happen to roll it but is in the lap of the gods.

 

Exactly!

 

You can choose Benediction & Shroud for the first two turns and then with Cawl on the board you have a really decent chance of getting what you want when rolling in later turns.

 

Oh, so you can decide which to use at any point in the game? I thought it would be one or the other decided at the start. That's certainly interesting.

[Odds.043]

You can choose Benediction & Shroud for the first two turns and then with Cawl on the board you have a really decent chance of getting what you want when rolling in later turns.

Well, a really decent chance of rolling 2-5 (a 50% chance of getting any given can't among those 4 actually) but only a 1/3 chance of getting 1 or 6. I've already explained my view on six. One I see as being slightly more useful, since broad spectrum data tethers don't negate this outright, (and they won't be blanketing your army as well as your shooting reroll will) but skitarii morale is actually really high for our unit size, and having played a game where I kept forgetting that skitarii have Invuln saves, their supprisingly durable.

 

So, you have a 50% chance of getting the really good stuff (shroudpsalm), and only a 1/3 chance of getting the more situational stuff.

Edited June 15, 2017 by Odds.043

[Steerpike_]

 

You can choose Benediction & Shroud for the first two turns and then with Cawl on the board you have a really decent chance of getting what you want when rolling in later turns.

Well, a really decent chance of rolling 2-5 (a 50% chance of getting any given can't among those 4 actually) but only a 1/3 chance of getting 1 or 6. I've already explained my view on six. One I see as being slightly more useful, since broad spectrum data tethers don't negate this outright, (and they won't be blanketing your army as well as your shooting reroll will) but skitarii morale is actually really high for our unit size, and having played a game where I kept forgetting that skitarii have Invuln saves, their supprisingly durable.

 

So, you have a 50% chance of getting the really good stuff (shroudpsalm), and only a 1/3 chance of getting the more situational stuff.

 

 

In a shooting game shroudpsalm is so good you certainly want to use a re-roll if you miss it. Which gives you an overall 75% chance of getting it again.

[Steerpike_]

Due to the sniper/rifle ability to target characters, I’ve been comparing some units from various lists.

I’m thinking that the Vindicare assassin is probably best but am thinking that the Skitarii Rangers 5 man unit with 2 TA comes second. Their ability to include an omnispex and the guns range are two nice bonuses. Just the few battle reports seen so far don’t have them doing much.

 

It’s interesting that most lists (or at least Imperial lists) I’ve seen all include a sniper capability somehow to allow your faction to target characters.

 

In a mixed army I also like those Ratling snipers (Astra Militarum) for their cheap cost and shoot run/hide ability. Strangely enough in a couple battle reports they didn’t do a lot either.

 

 

Has anyone else compared snipers in Imperial lists? Do Ad Mech Rangers still rate pretty high?

 

Ok so I did a comparison:

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1fGhXLPCfRTNsB_qbRh7noPGRr-iYDUxoRlIIrzK8D2c/edit#gid=773756901

 

 

 

 

Ratlings are really good, but more situational than rangers or vindicares. If you really want to get a lot out of Ratlings you're going to need a ton of them. They're cheap, but if you wanted to take down say... Cawl in 3 turns, you would need to bring ~25 Rats. The shorter range is also an issue because you're exposing infantry to guns like heavy bolters. 

 

In fact, if enemies of the Omnissiah start bringing lots of 36" snipers which rely on -2 cover save rules (scouts/ratlings), phosphor blasters are going to simply shred them.  

 

Rangers and Vidicares provide long range utility for picking out the characters at the center of enemy artillery stars, but are less point efficient. Rangers are a little more efficient than the Vidicare if you don't count the 30 pt tax, less efficient if you do.

 

I can see a role for ratlings and long range snipers in an army. You want ratlings for taking out obnoxious targets like commissars and company commanders which by their nature will have to close with your army to be useful. You want rangers and Vidicares to pick out ordinance masters, and to make the most out of potentially limited high points with good LOS. 

 

Rangers also just look so cool

Edited June 15, 2017 by Steerpike_

[gilt_imp]

^Thank you for the info, I feel better now

[Odds.043]

In a shooting game shroudpsalm is so good you certainly want to use a re-roll if you miss it. Which gives you an overall 75% chance of getting it again.

You know, the idea that you could use the command reroll on canticles didn't even occur to me. Yes, definitely worth it.