Standout Units for a Newbie?

[IR0N]

Hi All.

 

I just wanted to ask very generally, what are the standout units you would recommend a new GK player to buy with the release of 8th edition?

 

I am yet to buy a codex and I know, once I do, I will find the units I need to play somewhat friendly and competitively. 

 

But before I do, I also want to get together some models and begin painting and forging my army.

 

Can I grab some recommendations and suggestions? Loadouts would be even more appreciated!

[Seizeman]

Grand masters in nemesis dreadknight, Strike squads, storm ravens, razorbacks, paladins, apothecaries, Voldus and Draigo. Pretty much in that order.

 

One of the advantages of grey knights is their models are versatile. Terminators and paladins share models. Strikes, purifiers, purgation squads also share a model, even interceptors if you magnetise their backpacks. Also, you can make ancients, apothecaries, librarians and other characters from the regular terminator box.

 

Loadout will also depend on how strict people in your area are about WYSIWYG. In my case we are very relaxed so I mix falchions, halberds and swords and use them all as falchions, and therer's no problem having a vehicle's weapon count as something else, although I prefer to use what the models have.

 

Loadouts for strikes, purifiers and interceptors are just storm bolter and falchions for everyone. With paladins, about 50/50 hammers and falchions, everyone with bolters. Paladin weapons can be magnetised.

 

I'd recommend buying the bare minimum 15 strikes (with bolters) and 8 terminators (bolters, 4 hammers 4 falchions) + 2 characters and equip them with no heavy weapons and save the bits so you can easily build some if  their rules change.

 

Dreadknights should have psycannon, psilencer and sword.

 

Razorbacks use assault cannons in this edition. Their box does not have that option but you can buy some assault cannon bits and easily convert them.

 

Storm raven uses hurricane bolters and meltas usually. On the torret, it can be assault cannons or laser, but you can easily magnetise those. You can actually magnetise the hurricanes if you want, I don't think that's necessary.

 

The list me and some other people are playing successfully consist of:

 

2 GMNDK

15 Strikes

Voldus/ Draigo

A combination of 1-2 apothecaries and 3-8 paladins.

1 Stormraven + 1 razorback or 3 razorbacks or 2 stormravens.

 

With this you can easily build a competitive and fun army at every level point from 1000 to 2500 and it's also relatively unexpensive. Of course it also depends on your taste, but Grey Knights do not have too much variety, so in that list you have pretty much every model available to our army, except for land raiders and dreadnoughts (land raiders are pretty much unplayable right now but dreadnoughts are ok, so if you love them you can make room for them without too much trouble).

 

If you have any more questions, just ask.

Edited September 4, 2017 by Seizeman

[Valerian]

That's pretty much it.  Seizeman has given you some great guidance on what you need to build yourself a very strong army.  

[IR0N]

Thank you man!

[Ticaliation]

Hi Guys,

 

reading through all the threads and lists and nowhere I have seen ancients (either paladin or brotherhood) mentioned? are they not worth it? - e.g. the +1 attack mainly but also the +1LD for some beefier Purge soul (dont think morale phase might somehow hurt GKs, if they loose too much bodies, they are pretty much dead right?) ?

Or is it like Apothecary or another paly squad are always better?

 

I though 15 strikes with ancient +1attack might have good synergy..

[Helycon]

The challenge will be keeping them in the bubble. If you deepstrike them, failing one of the charges foils your plans. You NEED to transport them in a Stormraven or RB and get close enough to not screw up the charge. It's tricky to use, but I don't think it's a bad unit at all.

[Seizeman]

Ultimately, he needs a lot of work and luck to be efficient, and he does nothing special, just adds more of the same to the army. If you want more melee damage, you have other options that are far more reliable  and efficient (apothecaries specially, but also paladins or HQs). You need 3 or 4 units under his aura for him to be better than an apothecary, and that's hard to pull off and probably overkill anyway. A unit that works on its own and does not loose power any time a friendly unit dies is better.

[Valerian]

I've yet to lose a single Grey Knight to Morale, by the way.  With 5 man squads throughout, generally high Ld, and re-rolls from ATSKNF, it just doesn't happen.

 

V

[Gentlemanloser]

Closest i came was a broodlord killing 4 Strikes in CC. Leaving the Justicar.

 

Rolled a 5.

 

Thank goodness for ATSKNF!

[Danarc]

They are great. +1 A is huge with 10 men pagk, our best unit, especially among more units. Moreover you can give him the relic banner which basically make him a purifier with no puri tax (they are tooooooo expensive). I always used it and it worths. Moreover I always deepstrike him with Draigo, even not always in first turn. The problem related to charge is real, but the bubble is 6" and you don't need to move all pagk outside the aura (assuming that eh fails the charge).

 

In an army based on pagk it is absolutely better and useful than an apothecary while in a pally/termy army the apotechary become useful. But you can use both in this case.

[Aethernitas]

I fly in the Ancient with a squad of Paladins with a Stormraven and I love him to pieces. I always use the banner relic so the smite becomes extra brutal. With another character around the Purge soul does one extra dmg and the Ancient himself is no slouch in combat. The moral bonus is largely secondary for me, I play him for the relic and the force multiplier on everything around him.

The raw power a beta strike with a paladin squad, an Ancient and a Doomglaive from a Stormraven and deepstriking Strikes plus GM (in either flavour) with 'First to the Fray' is terrifying to behold. Doesn't matter if not all of them make it into melee. In smaller battles one CP for 'Wisdom of the Ancients' is a budget option for the extra Oompg without investing in a GM.

[Seizeman]

The apothecary is still better even in PAGK heavy armies. An ancient needs to buff a 10 man squad, while attacking himself, to be just as efficient as the apothecary, and that's vs infantry. Against vehicles, the ancient needs to be buffing 20 guys to be equivalent to the apothecary, and you need anti-vehicle if you are playing so many PAGKs, not more falchion attacks. The apothecary is more versatile, as he can fight by himself while the ancient can't, and of course, has a heal.

 

Also, there's no reason ever to play 10-man strike squads. 5-man squads are just better.

 

The relic banner is not as good as some people think it is. You gain more damage from giving an apothecary the relic hammer than from giving an ancient the banner. Also, if you want to use the banner you can't deep strike and, of course, it pretty much forces to always use smite as your power.

[Aethernitas]

The apothecary is still better even in PAGK heavy armies. An ancient needs to buff a 10 man squad, while attacking himself, to be just as efficient as the apothecary, and that's vs infantry. Against vehicles, the ancient needs to be buffing 20 guys to be equivalent to the apothecary, and you need anti-vehicle if you are playing so many PAGKs, not more falchion attacks. The apothecary is more versatile, as he can fight by himself while the ancient can't, and of course, has a heal.

 

Also, there's no reason ever to play 10-man strike squads. 5-man squads are just better.

 

The relic banner is not as good as some people think it is. You gain more damage from giving an apothecary the relic hammer than from giving an ancient the banner. Also, if you want to use the banner you can't deep strike and, of course, it pretty much forces to always use smite as your power.

On what metric do you make those comparisons between a Apothecary and the Ancient? You can't just throw around some numbers without any context. The Ancient can fight quite nicely for himself, just not with a hammer.

 

Your argument for the relic hammer is again filled with holes. Against what exactly do I gain more dmg with a hammer? An average T8 3+ vehicle? Yes, about 1 wound more but since you assume he's already in melee why not assume the same for the Ancient? Suddenly they do the same amount of dmg and thats only against the most ideal target when it comes to the hammer. Against infantry the banner/falchion wins, against anything with a 5++ and better the banner/falchion wins by far. I don't need a banner for killing standard tanks or monsters, normal GKs with hammers do that well enough. I need it to drop Daemon Princes, RG's, Stormshields and all that stuff that normally poses a challenge.

 

Just thought about editing in another detail you represented wrong. It's very easy to give any unit charging from deepstrike the bonus of the Ancient banner. You just don't put your guys into direct base contact. Even with 32mm bases thats super easy to do. Just stand slightly less than an inch away, the 32mm bases are a lil more than an inch and then position your guys behind also slightly less than an inch from your front guys. Tadaaa, thats 4" of your charge range and since you can deepstrike slightly more than 9" all of your guys get the bonus even if the Ancient doesn't make it in.

 

Did we already talk about the case where the Apothecary rolls under a 4+ and does nothing apart from moving that turn? Or the fact that the Narthecium can't effect a unit twice? Just to be clear here - I also love the Apothecary but to say that the Apothecary (on whatever scale) outperforms the Ancient in every way is just straight and utter baloney.

Edited September 5, 2017 by Aethernitas

[Seizeman]

They don't do the same damage. An apothecary (with relic hammer) does 5,3 wounds to a T8 3+ save vehicle with melee + smite (4,38 + 0,92), 5,54 if he uses hammerhand. The ancient (with relic banner) does 4,15 against the same target (0.93 + 3.22), assuming no denies. However, the apothecary attacks not only on your turn but also on the opponent's turn (and remember the opponent can charge you too) and when he dies via "only in death..." stratagem. Each extra falchion attack (because of his aura affecting pagks) adds 0.15 wounds, so he needs 8 of those just to deal the same damage as the apothecary does. Of course, the ancient costs 40 more points and does not have a heal, so even in that case the apothecary is far more efficient.

 

And of course you said that's the ideal case for the apothecary, but that's not actually true. Against T 6 or 7 the difference is even greater in favour of the apothecary. Funny that you mention daemon princes, when the apothecary is so much superior than the ancient vs those, thanks to the 3 dmg smite and the rerolls to wound, and considering the possibility of the demon prince not being the closest target for smite or him charging first, both favouring the apothecary.

[Aethernitas]

 

They don't do the same damage. An apothecary (with relic hammer) does 5,3 wounds to a T8 3+ save vehicle with melee + smite (4,38 + 0,92), 5,54 if he uses hammerhand. The ancient (with relic banner) does 4,15 against the same target (0.93 + 3.22), assuming no denies. However, the apothecary attacks not only on your turn but also on the opponent's turn (and remember the opponent can charge you too) and when he dies via "only in death..." stratagem. Each extra falchion attack (because of his aura affecting pagks) adds 0.15 wounds, so he needs 8 of those just to deal the same damage as the apothecary does. Of course, the ancient costs 40 more points and does not have a heal, so even in that case the apothecary is far more efficient.

 

I dunno where you get the numbers from. I get 4,445 dmg for the relic hammer and 0,834 for the smite (without the GK Legion trait it's 0,75) so a total of 5,279. The Ancient does 0,925 with the Falchion and 2,916 with the smite for a total of 3,842. How the Apothecary can attack on the opponents turn and gets to use 'only in death' and the Ancient does not is beyond me

 

Each extra falchion wound adds 0,15 wounds ( Iguess you mean dmg?) against what exactly? Should I just guess what you're using in your math? I know you were using the T8 3+ vehicle again but it would be very helpful if you'd say so. Did you ever consider the fact that there may be models with hammers around? Or halberds or swords? Oh I know some of those are suboptimum but you don't even seem to consider that and it changes the math heavily in favour of the Ancient.

 

So let's say we are still hitting the tank from before (T8, 3+) then every Falchion adds 0,148 dmg, every hammer attack adds 0,625 dmg (on a 2+ Model thats 0,834 dmg), every halberd 0,296 dmg, every sword 0,185 dmg and every Warding Staff 0,296 dmg.

 

Now add some of those together in whatever fashion you'd like and you'll see that even buffing just one Paladin Squad with a hammers on the Paragon, two halberd, a warding staff and falchions (one of my Paladin units) already beats out the overall dmg the Apothecary does. Thats for ONE Paladin squad with pretty standard loadout without using hammerhand. I think you can extrapolate from there yourself. Thats why it's called a POWER MULTIPLIER.

 

 

And of course you said that's the ideal case for the apothecary, but that's not actually true. Against T 6 or 7 the difference is even greater in favour of the apothecary. Funny that you mention daemon princes, when the apothecary is so much superior than the ancient vs those, thanks to the 3 dmg smite and the rerolls to wound, and considering the possibility of the demon prince not being the closest target for smite or him charging first, both favouring the apothecary.

 

 

And yes, it is the best case for the Apothecary because with lower toughness all the buffed units do even more dmg per extra attack. But hey, I'll give you the Daemon Princebecause I forgot the 3 dmg smite, even though I didn't even mention him as a example of the Ancient beeing superior but as a example of units that  GKs may struggle against...

 

You are also still totally ignoring the fact that the mortal wounds from smite are amazing in the exact situations that the normal Nemesis weapons suffer - against units with high invul saves. Even if we jsut take the same vehicle example and give it a 5++ the Ancient alread comes pretty close on his own (4,389 dmg for the Apothecary to 3,842 dmg for the Ancient) and we haven't even factored in all the bonus attacks. Against somthing with T7 and a 5++ the Ancient on his own is already slightly ahead. This only gets more pronounced with better invul safes.

 

Again - if I can anyhow afford it I'll take a Apothecary too, but if I have to decide I'll always take the Ancient.

Edited September 6, 2017 by Aethernitas

[Seizeman]

Regular smite: chance of a 4+ on 2d6 is 91.66%, so 0.92*1=0.92

 

Of course I don't consider the possibility of models using anything but hammers and falchions. If we are talking about competitive units and loadouts, which is what the OP asked for, those weapons have no place in the discussion, specially if you add them with no justification just to win the ancient argument.

 

In all cases you are forgetting that the ancient costs 39 points more than the apothecary, so he has to do 38% more damage to be just as efficient (and he's having trouble just to do the same damage as the apothecary). Also, the apothecary can heal, which is not relevant to the damage calculations, but it is a significant factor on how good he is. Also, you are not considering the possibility of the ancient/apothecary being charged, which is awful for the ancient but a lot better for the apothecary, or the possibility of the opponent having denies for the smite, which algo favours the apothecary. And, of course, we are doing the math considering both have relics. If the ancient has no relic, he loses most of his damage. If the apothecary looses his relic, he only looses 1/4 of its damage, and only agains multi-wound models.

 

Against T7 5++ units the apothecary is actually better. More than half the units with T7 and 5++ are demons, so the apothecary wins agains those. The only ones that are not demons are contemptor dreads and riptides. A contemptor is going to kill either the ancient or the apothecary most of the time, so in this case the apothecary wins because he can use "Only in death...". The ancient can be argued to do more damage against a riptide, that's correct.

[Danarc]

I can't understand how apt could be useful with SS. 50% of times he can't do anything during the turn. and in the better case he res a model. 

 

About the maths we should consider that if the app could take the relic hammer, the ancient could have the relic banner. moreover he influences the hammers (I have an hammer on every justice).

 

On the other hand, I use SS in 10 men formations (3x10). Do you think that 5 men are better because of more smite? Because 5 men are very easy to kill and generate first blood as a gift. Using them in 6x5 doesn't give me more CP (it is impossible to insert 4 HQ for me).

[Seizeman]

Te apothecary han heal himself or another character, that's good enough, considering he's already better without the heal. Furthermore, as I already stated, it is the ancient that needs relics to compete with the apothecary. If no relics are involved (or you pick the cuirass, because it's the better choice most of the time), the advantage gets even bigger in favour of the apothecary.

 

Hammer on strikes or 10-man units are really bad choices, so there's no point in considering them when evaluating other units. Justifying a bad unit with another bad unit with badly chosen equipment makes no sense at all.

 

Five man strike squads are far better than 10 man because of the extra power and the extra justicar, plus the tactical versatility. Strikes should not give first blood because they should not start on the table, and if they do, the opponent will have first blood anyway because strikes in the open are really easy to kill and a 10-man unit is dying anyway. There's absolutely no point in 10-man squads.

Edited September 6, 2017 by Seizeman

[Reclusiarch Darius]

Standout must haves for me are:

- Grandmaster DK's (2-3)

- Paladins (1-3 units of 3)

- Strikes (3-6 units of 5)

- Stormraven (1-2)

 

Situational but still excellent are:

- Brother-Captain (the more Strikes you run, the better he gets)

- Interceptors (perfect choice for 'Vortex', because they're so incredibly mobile, Strikes are a bit more cost effective though)

- Doomglaive Dreadnought (if you have a Raven he's great, otherwise you'll need to 'Gate' or spend a CP to Teleportarium him)

- Librarian (he's a little expensive, but with Brotherhood bonus he's Denying on a +2 within 12" of the enemy)

 

Apothecary and Ancients feel like 'win more' choices. They're both situationally useful, however they're always running the risk of being left behind when you charge your friends into combat, leaving them out of range to do their thing. I personally feel you could just take more Paladins for similar points and get more bang for you buck. They're also slow once they land, so unless you want to use up your 'Gate' every turn moving them, you could get left behind. 

 

I don't actually rate Razorbacks, I think you can just take another Strike squad and apply Psybolt Ammo strategem (they're one of the best targets for it, besides the Raven hurricanes). The Strikes also conveniently help pay for it, because they can be used to fulfil Battalion requirements (most efficient way of getting CP). The Razor does have twice the wounds and T7, but with the amount of lascannon I typically face locally (plus stuff like Terminators and Wulfen), that won't matter too much. Not a bad choice by any measure, just not what I will be taking. 

 

The rest are kinda medicore, not bad. The only truly trashbin choice are Purifiers, because 3"/6" Smite with Psychic Locus is a joke. There is simply no way to deliver them before someone either shoots them or charges them to death. Oh and as Seizeman mentioned, avoid Land Raiders because they're insanely overpriced and the Raven basically does their job cheaper and better. 

 

I really wanted the new planes (Hawk and Talon) to be good, but they're just too specialised and expensive. Ignoring the -1 from heavy weapons on the move is what makes the Raven so good, along with its absurd amount of guns. I also wanted Purgators to be good, but the sad reality is you can just take a gatling psilencer on your Grandmaster DK and have way more consistency (12 shots hitting on 3's re-rolling 1's, vs 24 shots hitting on 4's). I did give them a go landing with the alpha strike (wasting a CP on Teleportarium, don't do that btw) and inside Grandmaster aura, but even with the reroll buff, hitting on 4's just drops their damage output too far.

 

I do wanna give an honourable mentioned to Venerable Dreads. They're inefficient and kinda die too fast, but super accurate if you stay still and its funny to troll people with 'Astral Aim' firing lascannons and missiles through walls. If you're not keen on Paladins, they're a decent ranged alternative to hang out in your DZ to focus down big stuff.

 

On the subject of First Blood, I feel like you can't avoid that unless you get first turn. It's definitely one of the problems of 8th, first turn is too decisive and decides a lot of games I've been in. Some armies can weather the storm better than others, but its still a huge advantage.

[Aethernitas]

Regular smite: chance of a 4+ on 2d6 is 91.66%, so 0.92*1=0.92

 

Of course I don't consider the possibility of models using anything but hammers and falchions. If we are talking about competitive units and loadouts, which is what the OP asked for, those weapons have no place in the discussion, specially if you add them with no justification just to win the ancient argument.

 

In all cases you are forgetting that the ancient costs 39 points more than the apothecary, so he has to do 38% more damage to be just as efficient (and he's having trouble just to do the same damage as the apothecary). Also, the apothecary can heal, which is not relevant to the damage calculations, but it is a significant factor on how good he is. Also, you are not considering the possibility of the ancient/apothecary being charged, which is awful for the ancient but a lot better for the apothecary, or the possibility of the opponent having denies for the smite, which algo favours the apothecary. And, of course, we are doing the math considering both have relics. If the ancient has no relic, he loses most of his damage. If the apothecary looses his relic, he only looses 1/4 of its damage, and only agains multi-wound models.

 

Against T7 5++ units the apothecary is actually better. More than half the units with T7 and 5++ are demons, so the apothecary wins agains those. The only ones that are not demons are contemptor dreads and riptides. A contemptor is going to kill either the ancient or the apothecary most of the time, so in this case the apothecary wins because he can use "Only in death...". The ancient can be argued to do more damage against a riptide, that's correct.

 

So hammers, halberds and warding staves are "not competitive" because you say so? I take it you've seen the Mathhammer saying Falchions do the most dmg per point and for you that means they're the most competitive, completely ignoring unit composition, meta or the fact that hammers are far superior against high toughness targets (as we've already seen) or warding staves offer additional utility?

 

So half of the entries with T7 and 5++ are daemons (what a coincidence) so that's what you fight against more than half of the time ;) I still have no idea why only the Apothecary can fight in the opponents turn or why only he gets to use 'Only in death...' and you're not providing any explanation.

 

My point stands that the Ancient is the better power multiplier even though the Apothecary in a vaccuum does better dmg. Doesn't make either of those a objectivly "better" choice in general. Those whiteroom comparissons are very popular here, especially in the GK forum even though it only gives a very isolated gauge for a units efficiency. If you still can't see my point let's agree to disagree. Just dont inject your extremist back/white opinions on new players like they're the word of (a) god. Not a constructive way to approach a complex game like 40K or anything in general.

 

[Aethernitas]

 

Apothecary and Ancients feel like 'win more' choices. They're both situationally useful, however they're always running the risk of being left behind when you charge your friends into combat, leaving them out of range to do their thing. I personally feel you could just take more Paladins for similar points and get more bang for you buck. They're also slow once they land, so unless you want to use up your 'Gate' every turn moving them, you could get left behind.

 

Just for the record - with 40mm bases you can reach back over 5" in cc while you still get to hit with all of your guys so if you don't charge the full 12" and your Ancient is deepstriking/beeing transported with your Terminators/Paladins you always get the bonus attack. If not thats on you for bad positioning. Only time you might loose a few attacks is with PAGK when charging extreme distances because of the smaller bases. In those cases you have to daisychain one modell to reach the buff still.

[Reclusiarch Darius]

It comes down to damage output and efficacy. Falchions outperform all other options besides hammers, because that extra attack is so critical for an army with limited numbers and 'Hammerhand' becoming exponentially better the more attacks you have. On Strikes you need it, on Paladins its probably a personal choice (they'll demolish anything you point them at regardless, I'm still experimenting between swords and falchions on them, the -3 on swords might prove more useful when engaging other heavy infantry). On characters, hammers are just so much better, especially as you're still hitting on 3's (negating the primary disadvantage it has on regular GK dudes). I'll also be taking hammers on Paragons, for the same reason (plus I feel Paladins don't wanna risk getting bogged down against other Terminators, Custodians etc).

 

Regarding positioning, its doable, but if I just take more Paladins, I don't have to worry about it. I wasn't aware Ancients didn't benefit GM's in Dreadknight armour, that kinda sucks. I mainly run a lot of Strikes, so keeping the banner in range to benefit them is trickier. 

[Seizeman]

Hammers are not far superior on strikes. They add a little damage vs vehicles, but not enough to justify their price, while also dealing less damage agains light infantry. A single halberd on the justicar can be fine against very specific armies, but you can't justify them in a TAC list. The same goes for the stave. If you want to consider the meta, top armies infantry is light and ranged, so falchions are still better than halberds or staves.

 

Is pretty obvious why fighting on the opponent's turn and using Only in death favours the apothecary. The ancient does extremely low damage in melee and most of his damage comes from the relic banner, so he gets little from an additional combat phase. On the other hand, the apothecary does most of his damage in melee, so he benefits greatly from extra combat phases. A single apothecary charging a dreadnought/maulerfiend/tyranid monster is almost guaranteed to kill it's target between his regular attacks and Only in death, while the ancient does not, or, if he gets charged, he will severely wound or even kill the offender, but the ancient will barely do anything against it.

 

You are talking about calculations about the apothecary being made in a vacuum, so let's see some possible situations. If  you want to deal with several targets, the apothecary can, as he does damage by himself, while the ancient can't, as he must stay with other units and does next to nothing in melee. If you want to deploy a unit separate from the main army, to grab objectives or kill an isolated unit, the apothecary can do it and take care of himself, while the ancient by himself is useless. If for some reason the unit the ancient wants to buff dies, his power is reduced to almost nothing, while the apothecary, in the same situation, retains his full power. There are a ton of examples and almost all of them favour the apothecary.

 

Yes, the ancient can buff a paladin squad with an extra attack each from deep strike. That's hardly worth 142 points, specially if the paladins fail their charge, in which case he does nothing at all. In the same situation, the apothecary gives you an extra attempt for a charge (because the ancient charging alone is pretty much useless). Best case scenario, they are  the same, worst case, the apothecary is better.

[Aethernitas]

Hammers are not far superior on strikes. They add a little damage vs vehicles, but not enough to justify their price, while also dealing less damage agains light infantry. A single halberd on the justicar can be fine against very specific armies, but you can't justify them in a TAC list. The same goes for the stave. If you want to consider the meta, top armies infantry is light and ranged, so falchions are still better than halberds or staves.

 

Is pretty obvious why fighting on the opponent's turn and using Only in death favours the apothecary. The ancient does extremely low damage in melee and most of his damage comes from the relic banner, so he gets little from an additional combat phase. On the other hand, the apothecary does most of his damage in melee, so he benefits greatly from extra combat phases. A single apothecary charging a dreadnought/maulerfiend/tyranid monster is almost guaranteed to kill it's target between his regular attacks and Only in death, while the ancient does not, or, if he gets charged, he will severely wound or even kill the offender, but the ancient will barely do anything against it.

 

You are talking about calculations about the apothecary being made in a vacuum, so let's see some possible situations. If  you want to deal with several targets, the apothecary can, as he does damage by himself, while the ancient can't, as he must stay with other units and does next to nothing in melee. If you want to deploy a unit separate from the main army, to grab objectives or kill an isolated unit, the apothecary can do it and take care of himself, while the ancient by himself is useless. If for some reason the unit the ancient wants to buff dies, his power is reduced to almost nothing, while the apothecary, in the same situation, retains his full power. There are a ton of examples and almost all of them favour the apothecary.

 

Yes, the ancient can buff a paladin squad with an extra attack each from deep strike. That's hardly worth 142 points, specially if the paladins fail their charge, in which case he does nothing at all. In the same situation, the apothecary gives you an extra attempt for a charge (because the ancient charging alone is pretty much useless). Best case scenario, they are  the same, worst case, the apothecary is better.

 

So you keep picking out stuff I say and twisting my words? Who said anything about hammers on PAGK? And yes, they still do much higher absolute dmg but on Strikes the points per dmg ratio is not good, I agree. Thats also not what I said.

 

Ironically you yourself state that horde armies are the majority of the/your meta and still keep saying that the Apothecary does more dmg overall when against all those infantry squads the falchion on the Ancient do more dmg even without any relic (Yes, he also easily manages those 38% more dmg with the relic). Should be pretty obvious since the falchions and the hamer have very different jobs. The calculation in general is skewed in your favor since neither me or you factored in that dmg won't just flow over which makes the hammer a lot worse in any scenario against 1 wound models.

 

So still your whole argument (including the whole 'Only in death...' favouring anyone baloney) is based on once inability to use basic positioning to buff at least one squad with the Ancient, only fight against single models with high toughness and low to no invul.

[Valerian]

++ This back and forth has probably gone on long enough. Both of you have had several opportunities to make your case, so any readers of the thread will have enough information to make up their minds. ++