What weapons to kill what for the best point cost?

[micahwc]

I got bored at work so I spent a lot of time with Excel writing formulas and figuring out what to use to kill different targets.

 

My targets are GEQs (T3, 5+ sv, 1 wound), MEQs (T4, 3+ sv, 1 wound), and a Tank Equivalent (T8, 3+ sv, multiple wounds)

 

Weapons and units tested are as follows in no particular order: Renegade Command Squad with 1 heavy bolter, Heavy Quad Launcher with average number of shots,  Heavy Mortar with average number of shots and average wounds per shot, Earthshaker cannon with average number of shots (did NOT factor in best of 2 dice) and average damage, Havok squad with 4x heavy bolters, Xiphon Interceptor, 3 gun heavy weapons squad with Heavy Bolters, and 3 gun heavy weapons squad with lascannons.

 

I wrote an excel formula using a lot of IF commands, but had issues with both "greater or equal to" and "lesser or equal to", so I did the numbers on those manually with a calculator.

 

There are probably errors in places. Math is not my strong suit.

 

• Results

 

GEQ:   Number one Renegade and Heretic killer of Guard Equivalents for the point cost is.......the 3 gun heavy weapons squad with Heavy Bolters. The number of shots and low cost offset the poor ballistic skill. These cost approximately 16 points per guard equivalent killed per shooting phase. A very close second place at 19 points per guardman where the heavy bolter havoks. The Heavy Quad Launcher comes in at 27 points, and the command squad with a single heavy bolter comes in at 28 points.

 

MEQ: Number one Renegade and Heretic killer of Marine Equivalents for the point cost is.......Again the heavy bolter weapons squad at 27 points per marine. Heavy Bolter Havok Squads are again second at 31 points per marine killed. Third place is the command squad with a single heavy bolter at 48 points per marine; and fourth place comes the Heavy Quad Launcher at 54 points per marine.

 

Tank Equivalent: Number one Renegade and Heretic tank killer for the point cost is......The Earthshaker Battery at 29 points per unsaved wound. Second place goes to Lascannon Havoks with 31. Third is a heavy weapons squad with 3 lascannons with 37. And fourth goes to the Xiphon interceptor (combined lascannons and missiles) with 39.8 points per unsaved wound.

 

 

• Thoughts:

 

I thought the heavy quad launcher would do better; and am honestly surprised by the heavy weapon squads. The low cost offsets the poor ballistic skill and makes them a decent option. Obviously this doesn't take every factor into the equation, it's only raw damage using strict averages. It doesn't account for re-rolls, command points, cover saves, the ability to fire indirectly, weapon range, the durability of the unit firing, etc. Numbers assume firing unit is not moving and has no penalties or bonuses to hit the target.

 

There is no reason to take a heavy mortar over a heavy quad launcher. Ever. It does strictly worse in all three scenarios despite its lower cost and higher damage. The sheer number of shots the heavy quad launcher makes it better. They are good against guard, decent against marines, and not the worst against tanks.

 

Havoks are a great buy for whatever they are hunting. I'd suggest lascannons for tanks and heavy bolters for everything else; although I do like the versatility of missile launchers. Missiles are worse at infantry than heavy bolters and worse than lascannons against tanks. Just ran the numbers on them. Krak missiles are almost as bad at tanks as a renegade heavy bolter squad is, and frag missiles are about the same as a renegade lascannon squad on marines; and slightly worse than a heavy mortar against guard.

 

Xiphon interceptors are great against tanks; and not horrible against MEQs and GEQs; sitting right in the middle of both. They are also especially good against flyers; they have a +1 against flyers and they don't have a penalty for moving and firing heavy weapons.

 

• How much do I need to shoot to make back my points:

Comparing the amount of unsaved wounds each unit can cause against the estimated cost of the target unit; we can estimate how many turns of firing we need to make back our points for any given unit. Some units are much more efficient than others. Here are some standouts:

• Havoks with frag missiles shooting at guard equivalents will need to fire for 9.96 turns to make their point cost back.
• Havoks with Krak missiles shooting at a tank with 12-15 wounds will likely make their cost back in 4 to 5 turns.
• Heavy Quad Launchers almost break even if they fire 7 times against guard infantry, but will likely make their points back against marines over 5 turns
• A heavy mortar will likely make up its points against marines over 5 to 6 turns, but will need 9 turns against guard.
• A Xphon will likely make its points up in 3 to 4 turns shooting against vehicles, but good luck against guard. It will also do well against expensive marine equivalents such as havoks, devestators, assault marines, etc. A Xiphon will statistically wipe a 5 man squad of marines in 2 turns.

 

• Closing

I didn't run the numbers originally but against guard it's hard to beat massed autogun/lasgun fire. 10 marauders in rapid fire range with lasguns will kill as many as a heavy bolter Havok squad for 60 points instead of 85. 20 militia in rapid fire range will do the same thing for 80 points. 20 Renegade cultists with autoguns will kill 6 guard a turn in rapid fire range; and chaos codex cultists will kill the same for less points.

 

[micahwc]

Valkyries are not horrible for GEQs with multi-laser, multiple rocket pods, and heavy bolters they score a 40, about in the middle of everything. 4.46 unsaved wounds per turn against GEQs.

Edited September 5, 2017 by micahwc

[micahwc]

• TL:DR

T8+ you want lascannons or earthshakers, then missile launchers.

 

Marine equivalents die best to heavy bolters, followed by missile launchers, lascannons, and heavy quad launchers.

 

Guard equivalents die best to mass lasgun/autogun rapid fire, followed by heavy bolters, frag missiles, and quad guns.

 

 

Edit: Just did the helfforged scorpius because I own two of them. If they don't move they do well against all three targets, and especially well against terminators and primaris marines.

Edited September 5, 2017 by micahwc

[N1SB]

 

I wrote an excel formula using a lot of IF commands, but had issues with both "greater or equal to" and "lesser or equal to", so I did the numbers on those manually with a calculator.

 

There are probably errors in places. Math is not my strong suit.

 

Your kung fu is strong.  My favourite was how you bottom-lined your findings; Excel is just a tool, it's your final conclusions that were important, like that turns-to-make-back-the-cost.  I didn't consider some of these options before, I really like it.  I got to double-check my own Excel which I did around the time of R&H.

 

I reached the same conclusion you did with the Earthshaker Battery; it's disproportionately cheap for damage, like FW eyeballed the cost and got it on the low side, factoring in on how it's immobile, etc.  Its sheer damage for cost already made it a stand-out, then its indirect fire makes it a must-have IMHO.

 

The Wyvern is the flip-side of that.  You're right, you looked at sheer cost per Wound, but you already mentioned that doesn't account for indirect fire, etc.  Whereas the Earthshaker Battery already justified its cost before considering indirect fire, the Wyvern needs some fudging.  At this point it's beyond cold hard probability calculations; we call it "sensitivity analysis", but what it really means is we skew the numbers a bit to consider how it plays out in practice.  Example - the Wyvern gets to fire at whatever it wants every turn, whereas a Heavy Bolter team needs line-of-sight, and your opponent will try to maneuver his units away from that.  So we'd actually multiply the Heavy Bolter's numbers by a percentage, like if we think the Heavy Bolter will only fire 4 of 5 turns wheras the Wyvern will fire every turn at the intended target, we'll multiply by 0.8.  Counter-example - of course then that doesn't account for things like those targets will be in Dedicated Transports at which point the Wyvern is a lot less effective, so we fudge things back the other way...and at some point the whole thing becomes meaningless.

 

TL;DR - yeaaah...it's a good thing you provided that reality check against the Wyvern for the Heavy Bolter.

 

But srsly good job on the doing the due diligence AND drawing actionable conclusions.  Thanks for this, am going to revisit my own thing.  I think your approach of Wounds/points is a better approach than how I did mine...mainly because I think I was lazy.  I do think that while accounting for the Wyvern, we do have to account for the Heavy Bolter dmg?  Or is that superfluous?  Dunno, Imma go stare at my Excel some more time permitting.

[micahwc]

Accounting for mixed weapons on the xiphon was annoying. I basically had to run it twice for all three targets, once for the four lascannons and once for the missile launcher, and then combine the results. I couldn't really think of a way I wanted to work a formula for that. A vehicle like a superheavy that has 3 or 4 weapon types, and different BS penalties on different weapon systems would be a nightmare to calculate.

 

Just a note, I didn't do Wyverns, I did heavy quad launchers. Wyverns get sweet re-rolls to wounds that would make them more effective; heavy quad launchers don't get that.

 

My biggest conclusion was that I think I want to spam heavy bolters and missile launchers. Missile launchers did okay against everything. Heavy bolters do really well against MEQ and GEQs, which is the majority of the infantry in the game. If you know you will be fighting a lot of terminators or primaris with two wounds then it may be better to switch to autocannons, scorpius launchers, etc.

[micahwc]

I added some columns to the spreadsheet for primaris and terminator marines. Both T4, 2 wounds, saves of 3 and 2 respectively.

 

Against both, the best weapon tested was the scorpius launcher that hasn't moved. Firing a high number of shots at good BS, with good AP, and 2 damage each. A single scorpius will kill half a terminator squad in one turn of firing.

 

Number two for both was the xiphon interceptor*

 

Honorable mentions go to Earthshaker* batteries and missile launcher havoks.*

 

*, assumes you don't roll a bunch of 1s for damage on your lascannons/krak missiles. With the average damage of both weapons being 3.5 each unsaved hit will kill a primaris/terminator, but every time you roll a 1 for damage you just wound one of them.

 

Finally, there is one category where a heavy mortar beats out a heavy quad launcher, against terminators a heavy mortar will do .001 more wounds per turn of firing to a terminator than a heavy quad launcher.