We're Gonna Get a Book!

[Utter Polux]

I didn’t say that at all. You simply can’t ignore the points difference when making a comparison. Pedro Kantor is better than a standard Captain...but we don’t compare the two without first acknowledging the points difference.

 

Heavy Bolters are better than Lascannons and Plasma Cannons in Imperial Fist armies for their points in what is a points based game. There is no arguing that fact.

[BitsHammer]

I didn’t say that at all. You simply can’t ignore the points difference when making a comparison. Pedro Kantor is better than a standard Captain...but we don’t compare the two without first acknowledging the points difference.

 

Heavy Bolters are better than Lascannons and Plasma Cannons in Imperial Fist armies for their points in what is a points based game. There is no arguing that fact.

With Pedro vs a Captain you're compating two similar models with similar rules, but to compare 5 heavy bolters against 4 of another weapon means going above what those squads can carry and means a need to factor in the additional cost of 5 extra bodies just to match the output of those Devastators.

 

Basically it's a bad comparison to only look at the weapons themselves because it doesn't give you the complete story.

[Mandragola]

Rerolling variable damage dice would have been a really interesting approach. It would also be far less powerful. If you always reroll a 1-3 the average of a D6 becomes 4.25, so it’s only an increase of 0.75 on average, which is worse than they get with the current rules. You’d have to make that reroll be against everything (not just vehicles and buildings) for it to make sense, I think.

 

Are you guys talking about efficiency comparing costs per model or per gun? If you’re still using a different baseline then, regardless of which is the correct one to use, you’re obviously going to get different results.

 

Devastator Centurions don’t necessarily give you the highest damage output per point spent. A 70 point model with 2 heavy bolters is actually pretty unremarkable. The damage steps up within 24” when the hurricane bolters kick in, though more against hordes than hard targets.

 

The really good thing about Centurions isn’t so much their base damage (which is decent) but their synergy with other stuff. Most obviously there’s the siegebreaker strat of course. But they are also great for tank hunters and the strat that adds 1 to saves and attacks near an objective. And if they get tagged in melee you can turn all their bolt weapons into pistols (thereby losing the +1 damage super-doctrine but obliterating whatever has reached you) The main benefit is just that you can use these abilities on a big unit where they affect a lot of attacks, so you get more out of your CPs. They also work well with Ancients and Apothecaries.

 

Anyway I thought I’d do a bit of adding up for myself. Since the conversation so far has been about devastators I’ve done this for them, using heavy bolters, plasma cannons and lascannons. I’ve given them captain and lieutenant buffs and assumed exploding 6s for bolters. Then I added in the Deredeo because I like them. Here are the results - with two columns for the Deredeo because it's got two types of gun.

 

 

There’s nothing too surprising. The Heavy bolter tends to be best against stuff with 1 wound. Plasma is great against things with no invulnerable save or against Primaris. Shooting plaguebearers is hard and lascannons are generally pretty bad – even against things like riptides. I was too lazy to actually calculate the chances of disgustingly resilient saving a plaguebearer from a lascannon, so I left that as a 100% chance. Lascannons are still rubbish against plaguebearers.

 

I’m pleased because I think this shows why I like the Deredeo. In terms of cost-effectiveness it’s either best or second best against every target – at least in this sample. I think this shows that it’s a better choice than any kind of devastator squad. However, I have not included the cost of the shield (or roof missiles) for the Deredeo. I think the shield provides a benefit to other units (which is great) rather than the Deredeo itself, so it’s not really a factor in the thing’s damage output. And the roof missiles are overpriced so I don’t take them, since they’re optional.

Edited October 25, 2019 by Mandragola

[BitsHammer]

Honestly when so compare options I do so inside of the same unit to best fine tune what options I take for a given unit. I don't mathhammer between weapons and then spam a single weapon across the entire army as that tends to leave the army rather skewed and as someone who likes to balance for TAC too much skew isn't interesting to me. Edited October 25, 2019 by Fulkes

[Mandragola]

Honestly when so compare options I do so inside of the same unit to best fine tune what options I take for a given unit. I don't mathhammer between weapons and then spam a single weapon across the entire army as that tends to leave the army rather skewed and as someone who likes to balance for TAC too much skew isn't interesting to me.

I understand that approach, but mine is different. I’m not particularly interested in what gun is best for each unit, but rather which units are best for my army.

 

That means looking at all the jobs that a unit can do, which means looking far beyond just the mathhammer above. Considerations like durability, mobility, available stratagems and FOC slot all matter too – among many other factors.

 

Most of that stuff can’t be done in excel. You need to try it out. However, sometimes you can find out stuff in the theoretical (e.g. lascannon devastators are expensive, fragile and ineffective) that means you can save yourself the bother of buying and painting a unit. You might need to test between plasma and heavy bolters to see whether you often see the targets they excel against.

[Utter Polux]

Those figures are very interesting and really helpful thank you. I had been looking at the load out of my redemptors and I was always a bigger fan of the plasma...I wondered whether the extra damage would point me in the direction of the Gatling cannon but it was obvious the plasma vs tanks is still much better. I think the Gatling is overpriced.

[BitsHammer]

I pick more based on a sort of rule of cool, them work out what I think is the best loadout for a unit, then go all in on making that unit work for me on the table.

 

I have a decent knack for picking units thamks to thr amount of experience I have with 40k, it's more what to give those units is more the question I tend to need to answer more.

[Utter Polux]

Stalker Bolt rifles are a good example of a unit doing slightly less damage than heavy Bolter Devastators vs tanks but they have double the wounds and the minute one heavy is dead then the stalkers are better.

 

Trouble is heavy bolters kick ass vs hordes where as stalker Bolters do not.

[Lemondish]

Stalker Bolt rifles are a good example of a unit doing slightly less damage than heavy Bolter Devastators vs tanks but they have double the wounds and the minute one heavy is dead then the stalkers are better.

 

Trouble is heavy bolters kick ass vs hordes where as stalker Bolters do not.

 

Very true, but taken as a whole you don't really need those Intercessors to be able to kick ass vs hordes if their value is all built around taking out heavy infantry and contributing damage to light armour targets. It's probably a narrower purpose offensively, but defensively more valuable given how decent those guys are at sticking around. 

 

Lots of think about. 

[Utter Polux]

Plus it’s always an option to use the extra attacks in cc vs weak horde units. I would like to take some stalker bolt rifles in my list for sure.

[Gree]

I'm thinking about trying out Tactical Terminators with this supplement. Would it be worth it with all the bolter buffs the Fists get?

[Master_Trajan]

What do you think about a LR Crusader in a IF list? For 244 points it seems an interesting bet. I would like to give it a try with a loadout of assault centurions and other heavies in the list to absorb the enemy AT (repulsors, dreadnoughts..)

[Mandragola]

 

Stalker Bolt rifles are a good example of a unit doing slightly less damage than heavy Bolter Devastators vs tanks but they have double the wounds and the minute one heavy is dead then the stalkers are better.

 

Trouble is heavy bolters kick ass vs hordes where as stalker Bolters do not.

 

Very true, but taken as a whole you don't really need those Intercessors to be able to kick ass vs hordes if their value is all built around taking out heavy infantry and contributing damage to light armour targets. It's probably a narrower purpose offensively, but defensively more valuable given how decent those guys are at sticking around. 

 

Lots of think about. 

 

 

These decisions are really complex, aren’t they? There are a lot of moving parts. I can use my intercessors for anti-horde or anti-tank. If I take them for anti-horde I’ll take deredeos (or something) to go with them. If I take stalkers then maybe I’d supplement them with aggressors or centurions.

 

Actually I think the answer might be to mix and match intercessors. A single unit with stalkers (maybe 10 guys who you can combat squad) would be good objective-campers and could sometimes be used to snipe characters. ABR squads are better for advancing to contest the centre and fighting against other people’s troops. It might now be that bolt rifle squads are sort of caught in the middle, though the rapid fire stratagem does give an option to lay down some respectable dakka.

 

And maybe I should just take infiltrators as troops to protect all this other stuff from being swarmed by GSC. Tricky!

 

I did the numbers for Heavy Onslaught vs Macro Plasma – both on a stationary platform, which a dread might not be. I just compared the damage done because the cost is effectively identical. Damage per turn vs assorted targets with HOGC first, then Macro plasma. And then I put in the invictor’s twin autocannon and flamer out of curiosity. These are kind of bad comparisons because they ignore all the other weapons, but might be interesting to decide what to give your models.

Target: HOGC/Macro plas/Invictor auto/Invictor flamer

Rhino: 4.84/ 6.35/ 5.44/ 3.63

Knight: 4.84/ 4.23/ 3.63/ 3.63

MEQ: 4.84/ 2.65/ 2.42/ 3.63

Primaris: 4.84/ 5.29/ 4.84/ 3.63

Riptide: 1.81/ 2.82/ 2.72/ 1.36

Plaguebearer: 2.42/ 0.71/ 1.61/ 2.42

 

I’m not overcharging plasma against plaguebearers by the way, because I think it’s not a good idea.

 

The HOGC beats the plasma half the time in my not-particularly-representative sample. It’s far better against MEQs (where it can basically kill a 5-man squad per turn) and plaguebearers, whereas the plasma is only a bit better when it wins. Plus the HOGC doesn’t hurt the dreadnought it’s stuck on.

 

Personally I like the HOGC. In particular I think the plasma gun suffers because a dread mostly wants to move, increasing the chance that it will overheat or reducing its firepower. You never lose anything for spraying HOGC bullets around.

 

Meanwhile the invictor’s autocannons beat the flamers 3 times out of 6, but it’s a draw when shooting at knights. These two guns have a lot more differences than just raw damage though. The flamer isn’t penalised by moving, which I’d expect an Invictor to do a lot of, but has a far shorter range. So really the autocannon’s numbers should be lower, to account for movement, but the flamer’s should as well because it’ll sometimes be out of range of what you want to shoot. In conclusion: dunno.

[Utter Polux]

I think for me I would be wanting my Redemptor for anti tank and counter attack. So that’s why I was thinking Plasma. There is also the option to take the small Gatling cannon for a bit of dakka. As I’m taking two it might be wise to take one of each option.

[Dont-Be-Haten]

it looks like centurions are off the website at the moment as they have sold out on the store. Pretty savage! I need one more squad to bulk out a full unit of 6. Even thoughts its over 400 points the thought of pumping out over 100 shots from a single unit is awesome. Adding on their ability to abuse cover with new stratagems seems like a win win to me. 

[Mandragola]

I think for me I would be wanting my Redemptor for anti tank and counter attack. So that’s why I was thinking Plasma. There is also the option to take the small Gatling cannon for a bit of dakka. As I’m taking two it might be wise to take one of each option.

I think the onslaught Gatling is very much better than the flamer for a redemptor. Same profile but triple the range and 6 shots instead of d6.

 

A redemptor with double gatlings has firepower approaching that of three devastator centurions, for around the cost of two of them. Not so many bolter shots of course, but you get a big fist to smack things with instead.

 

The Icarus pod is well worth sticking on a redemptor’s roof as well, now that it has base damage 2. When it did 1 damage it felt like a waste of time to even roll the dice, but it’s effectiveness against planes has more than tripled, thanks to now having (usually) ap-2 with the doctrine.

 

Overall I think that if anyone’s asking whether to take redemptors or invictors, I think we can safely answer: yes.

Edited October 25, 2019 by Mandragola

[Utter Polux]

The rocket pod is base damage 2 now isn’t it? So vs planes it’s damage 3 yeah?

[Lemondish]

 

I think for me I would be wanting my Redemptor for anti tank and counter attack. So that’s why I was thinking Plasma. There is also the option to take the small Gatling cannon for a bit of dakka. As I’m taking two it might be wise to take one of each option.

I think the onslaught Gatling is very much better than the flamer for a redemptor. Same profile but triple the range and 6 shots instead of d6.

 

A redemptor with double gatlings has firepower approaching that of three devastator centurions, for around the cost of two of them. Not so many bolter shots of course, but you get a big fist to smack things with instead.

 

The Icarus pod is well worth sticking on a redemptor’s roof as well, now that it has base damage 2. When it did 1 damage it felt like a waste of time to even roll the dice, but it’s effectiveness against planes has more than tripled, thanks to now having (usually) ap-2 with the doctrine.

 

Overall I think that if anyone’s asking whether to take redemptors or invictors, I think we can safely answer: yes.

Could not agree more.

 

I was trying to decide between Contemptor Mortis dreads with twin heavy Bolter and the missile launcher versus a decked out onslaught Redemptor. The BS2+ and exploding sixes on the Bolters, by my simple calculations, seemed to even out with the 6 extra shots the Redemptor has over it. The secondary pieces are where it gets more difficult. I'm actually leaning towards the Redemptors now...

[Utter Polux]

Awesome! Because I have two redemptors. One of each load out or both all dakka? What do you think?

[Mandragola]

I’d probably go all dakka. Definitely the storm bolters (though not the end of the world to have frags) and the Icarus pod.

[Utter Polux]

Assault Cannons are a lot easier to paint I guess!

[Medjugorje]

I heard something about fluff changes and Castellan Draco (A Black Templar) get communitcate traitoris... Are there any informations?

[BitsHammer]

I heard something about fluff changes and Castellan Draco (A Black Templar) get communitcate traitoris... Are there any informations?

Draco is mentioned as someone whom Tor Garadon has worked with in the past (along with others).

 

Also looks like we have a new chapter master for the Fists. Again. Gregor Dessian.

 

EDIT: found it:

War has taken too many of Garadon’s battle-brothers, his fellow Captains amongst them. Of his allies beyond the Chapter, Tycho was lost to the Black Rage on Armageddon; Sicarius is missing, swallowed by the tides of the Immaterium; Brasch perished in the firestorms of Ghola; and Draco was declared excommunicate traitoris for deeds too terrible to recount.

Edit 2: So even in all Primaris army showings (like the "example army" stuff in the codex) in the codex GW is showing off Centurions, so it looks like those can be considered something we'll be keeping around for the forseeable future.

Edited October 26, 2019 by Fulkes

[Montford]

Took the new book and 4,000 points of my Red Templars into battle today against 'Nids and Ad Mech and came out with a 10-6 victory! I maximized my bolters by taking 50 Tactical Marines. I even used Terminators  

Edited October 27, 2019 by Montford

[Robbienw]

RIP Vorn Hagen