Vindicator tactics 2.0

[2gud2bbad]

3 hours ago, SkimaskMohawk said:

 

Well cataphractii get to rerolls failed armour saves against blasts, cutting the math to about an 8% chance to fail against the brutal 3. The Scorpius rending on a 4+ leaves them with only their invul. 

 

The small template is definitely an issue. Going from a 5" to a 3" is actually going from ~19.6"² to ~7.1"², which is rather wild. 

 

And finally, no, you can't go 12" and shoot any more. You used to be able with potms, but that mechanic has been removed. Now, you can only shoot ordnance weapons if you combat speed, which is half the movement characteristic. So 6" in this case. You add the 24" range of the gun, the centreline mount, the really small blast, and you start to see how the normal Vindicator adds up to being bad. You can take the magna laser destroyer and have a similar wounds ceiling while also being able to burn down vehicles and dreads a lot easier.

 

 

 

I overlooked the innate catapractii reroll - oh man, in that case executioner/magna melta predators and scorpius will be the go to TEQ deleters for my Death Guard.

 

Especially a magna melta pred with lascannon sponsons and pintle MM for DG - 160 points for 6 ID AP2 (4 twin-linked) shots at full 14" movement is quite flexible imo for anti-tank, monster and TEQ killing.

[SkimaskMohawk]

15 minutes ago, 2gud2bbad said:

 

I overlooked the innate catapractii reroll - oh man, in that case executioner/magna melta predators and scorpius will be the go to TEQ deleters for my Death Guard.

 

Especially a magna melta pred with lascannon sponsons and pintle MM for DG - 160 points for 6 ID AP2 (4 twin-linked) shots at full 14" movement is quite flexible imo for anti-tank, monster and TEQ killing.

 

The magna melta pred is definitely a great tank, its only downside is that the heavy support squad is so undercosted that they can remove tanks pretty easily. 

[Misterduch]

Demolisher cannons are pretty decent at taking out Gal vorbak, which is something that not many things can boast about in the core section of the libers at that price point.

 

2 vinds at 225 points into a squad of 5 at 275 can potentially take out the whole bunch in 1 turn of shooting if they are clustered. As that is unlikely tough even getting 3 hits means you only need to roll 2's to kill without reactions/buffs etc. Compare that to a lascannon squad of 10 that can at most kill 3 with *perfect* rolls and nothing being saved by the 5+ feel no pain.

 

Since their main competition in the quality section for that role are things like arachnus lascannons or neutron lasers, there is some merit to vindicators. So if your meta is filled with word bearers go and try them.

 

 

[The Unseen]

I think at its current price/rules it needs large blast back, and a bonus of some kind vs vehicles/buildings. It's whole lore and function is knocking buildings down in a single shot, and if you did for some reason need to kill a bastion, it would take the Vindicator all game to knock one out. I'm glad they pulled back from massed AP2 blasts everywhere from 1.0, but this definitely feels like a weapon that got over-nerfed.

[Misterduch]

14 hours ago, The Unseen said:

I think at its current price/rules it needs large blast back, and a bonus of some kind vs vehicles/buildings. It's whole lore and function is knocking buildings down in a single shot, and if you did for some reason need to kill a bastion, it would take the Vindicator all game to knock one out. I'm glad they pulled back from massed AP2 blasts everywhere from 1.0, but this definitely feels like a weapon that got over-nerfed.

 

I wouldn't be opposed to blast/templates getting extra hits against dreads/automata/vehicles.

 

template/3" blast = D3 hits

5" blast = D3+1 hits

7" blast = D3+2 hits 

 

Would have to adjust points tough or maybe the whole blast = always side armour.

 

Alternatively a penalty for Ap4/5/6 on the damage table?

Edited January 1, 2023 by Misterduch

[The Unseen]

4 hours ago, Misterduch said:

 

I wouldn't be opposed to blast/templates getting extra hits against dreads/automata/vehicles.

 

template/3" blast = D3 hits

5" blast = D3+1 hits

7" blast = D3+2 hits 

 

Would have to adjust points tough or maybe the whole blast = always side armour.

 

Alternatively a penalty for Ap4/5/6 on the damage table?

Make the center of the blast templates count as 2 hits? Used to be that blast weapons only got their full strength vs vehicles in the center, everything else took a half strength hit. But that was when blast templates often had ap2-3 on spammable platforms, and you could destroy a vehicle on a 6 on the damage chart, not just with ap1-2, AP1 had a 50% chance of wrecking a vehicle on a pen in those days.

[SkimaskMohawk]

4 hours ago, The Unseen said:

Make the center of the blast templates count as 2 hits? Used to be that blast weapons only got their full strength vs vehicles in the center, everything else took a half strength hit. But that was when blast templates often had ap2-3 on spammable platforms, and you could destroy a vehicle on a 6 on the damage chart, not just with ap1-2, AP1 had a 50% chance of wrecking a vehicle on a pen in those days.

 

That was in 4th when you actually destroyed a vehicle on a 4+ from a pen, and ordnance had the devastating annihilated result that made people avoid transports. Also blasts just rolled to hit using BS instead of a scatter back then.

 

We've fallen a long way from then, now vehicles basically don't work like vehicles in terms of taking hits until you actually destroy them.

[Gorgoff]

Just give the Vindicator the big blast again. 

Seriously why did they made the blasts so small in many vehicles when they already nerfed their profile?

[Brother Sutek]

This wouldn't be as bad if the rule for taking hits was still closest model.  Right now I've seen more Artificer Armour saves that should ever have happened. I'm obviously ignoring in this rerolls and terminator units as I'm just focusing on this one point.

[Mandragola]

The Vindicator and Typhon could really do with a rule like Exoshock or instant death, so any building they penetrated died on a roll of X+. Or give them extra bonuses to the building damage chart to have a chance to blow them up.

 

They'd still be bad because buildings aren't really a feature of 2.0, but at least they'd be able to do the one job they're intended for.

 

Meanwhile, melta predators are better against basically any target. Move along.

[SkimaskMohawk]

2 hours ago, Brother Sutek said:

This wouldn't be as bad if the rule for taking hits was still closest model.  Right now I've seen more Artificer Armour saves that should ever have happened. I'm obviously ignoring in this rerolls and terminator units as I'm just focusing on this one point.

 

Ya I've played 40k since 4th, and it's safe to say that this is the worst wound allocation system they've made. The combination of free allocation, 2+ armour saves, characters breaking the wound-lock, and the melee engagement range thing means we have the worst aspects of tanking of 6th and juggling/disappearing wounds of 5th.

[Brother Sutek]

1 hour ago, SkimaskMohawk said:

 

Ya I've played 40k since 4th, and it's safe to say that this is the worst wound allocation system they've made. The combination of free allocation, 2+ armour saves, characters breaking the wound-lock, and the melee engagement range thing means we have the worst aspects of tanking of 6th and juggling/disappearing wounds of 5th.

I've played since 2nd and quit 40k after trying 8th for a few months. This allocation is painful, it's worse than when we had the first round of thunderwolf cav shenanigans!

[Gorgoff]

I agree. Charakters should not be allowed to choose wether or not they take a wound. Just make regular models take all the wounds first and charakters last or smth. Anything would be better. 

At least they shouldn't be able to choose. If they take one they should keep on taking wounds until they drop like every other model in the game. This way big units with two 2+ characters are way to good 

Edited January 2, 2023 by Gorgoff

[Rejects of Anvilus]

Wounds should be spread across a unit. A squad takes five hits from something, then five models each take a save. Ten man squad takes eleven hits, then each model takes one save and one model takes two. Easy and more realistic. 

[Gorgoff]

52 minutes ago, Rejects of Anvilus said:

Wounds should be spread across a unit. A squad takes five hits from something, then five models each take a save. Ten man squad takes eleven hits, then each model takes one save and one model takes two. Easy and more realistic. 

Or the closest models gets it first. Even more realistic. No excuses for leaders. 

But I like your version as well. Easy, fast and no wound allocation shenanigans. 

[Brother Sutek]

On 1/3/2023 at 3:48 AM, Gorgoff said:

Or the closest models gets it first. Even more realistic. No excuses for leaders. 

But I like your version as well. Easy, fast and no wound allocation shenanigans. 

 Closest model gets it. Blast template? Start from the center and go from there. Look out sir being one high number for characters and a slightly lower one for independent characters works for me. I hate seeing the amount of 2+ armour saves I see now that are off of a Sgt who is almost out of sight and range but narratively he is running around in front of the unit soaking up bullets.

[The Unseen]

Don't bring back closest model, that was equally terrible for different reasons. Ohh you put your specials in front so they could get into range like with flamers? They die first now. That and large units trying to get into combat literally got shot and lost potentially a whole turn of movement.

 

I would say I like the idea of evenly distributing the wound pool, controlling player chooses. So just 1 AP3 wound a sarge could defend, but h3 doesn't get to soak a 2nd from the same attack until everyone else takes 1 first.

[Brumbaer]

I played 40+ games of HH2.0 against 15+ different opponents with varying levels of experience.

All IMHO of course.

 

I wonder what this is about. What is the problem with the way wounds are allocated ?

It's nothing Legion specific, so it will not be unbalanced in that regard.

As far as the Artificer Armour for Sergeants is concerned, you pay through the nose for that 2+ save, so if it is unbalanced, it is unbalanced in the favour of other 2+ options.

If you take a character to get a better save for your unit, you pay even more for it.

Is it that some lesser unit just doesn't roll over and dies ? I use lesser, because a unit with Character and Artificer Sergeant isn't cheap in any way you look at it.

 

A Tactical Sergeant with AA will cost 20 points, a Tartaros Sergeant will cost 25 points.  I feel there will be an outcry, the Tartaros costs 5 points more and does not even have a Bolt Pistol. How unbalanced.

Of course the Tartaros comes with an energy weapon, which would cost the Tactical Sergeant 10 points. Considering the Bolt Pistol, both have the same number of Attacks.

So the Tartaros Sergeant will cost 5 points less in comparison. The Tartaros gets syncronsied for his Bolter, an additional wound, a 5 plus invulnerable save, relentless and inexorable - and cost 5 points less on top of it.

Note. An additional Tartaros will cost 25 points. As the Unit is not something standard, there is a premium of 25 Points for having a unit in the first place. If you take that into account the Tartaros will cost between 27.5 and 30 points. It doesn't really change anything and if you upgrade a Sergeant of a non Standard unit the premium will also apply to him, so I choose to ignore it.

 

To kill 10 Tacticals using AP4 you will need 10 * 3 = 30 wounds, with AP3, it will be 10 wounds.

If you upgrade the Sergeant with AA the wound needed will increase those to 33 and 15.

That's an increase of 10% and 50%. On a unit of 20 it will only be 5% and 25%.

Please keep in mind that the only AP3 ranged weapons you usually encounter in numbers are Missile Launchers. And that mainly with Legions that have them as option for some elitist choices.

Otherwise people tend to use AP2 weapons anyway, because if you buy an expensive weapon, you want it to be able to handle proper Sv2 troops, which are all around the battlefield nowadays.

That leaves Power Weapons with AP3. So you will have to inflict 6 wounds more, if the Sergeant is still alive when close combat occurs. Please note that the 6 is an average value which also takes into account the possibility of 12 saves in a row or 128. The chance that you save 4 or more 2+ in a row is below 50%.

 

Just for comparison, you will need 60 and 60 wounds on proper Sv 2 troops to get the same number of unsaved wounds. That's a far cry from 30 and 15.

 

Look at peoples army lists and you will see that the lesser troops are usually underrepresented. So I applaud everything that makes them more attractive. Also most Line troops are AP3 and player will concentrate fire on them to deny the opponent scoring objectives. Adding  Artificer Armour and free wound allocation for characters helps to make them more attractive and more resilient without being too cheap or unbalanced.

 

What I do not like about this kind of allocation concerns units in which even troopers are characters. And this kind of allocation "feels" wrong when applied to hits by templates."Troopers that are characters" just shouldn't exist and if it didn't  there would be no problem with wound allocation. I see no way around the latter, because otherwise you would snipe characters and special function models with templates.

 

What would happen, if you change wound allocation to "troops first". Lesser troops will loose a buff, they die even faster, 40k here we come. Making lesser troops less attractive means making the elitist units more attractive, yeaaah more Dreadnaughts, Termies and Legion specific stuff. If you go for that option, you will not need the Artificer Armour option, because why have it for the very last save before the unit is annihilated.

 

From the front. Too cumbersome. Hours spent on positioning the models in the unit to try to cover all your bases. Also you can scrap the AA option, because the Attacker will always position a model, so the Sergeant will not be closest to an AP3 weapon, but will always be closest to AP2 weapons. Template sniping will be king. Even worse than "Troops" and will slow down the game on top of it.

 

Distribute evenly. Too convoluted. Are you tracking which models had wounds allocated, so you know who to allocate to next ? Do you restart the allocation sequence for every unit, or restart for every weapon, or just do a round robin ? Who chooses whom to allocate to first ? Do you allocate wounds for multi-wound models separately ? Prone to misuse depending on how to allocate. A lot of clarifications needed, for what ?

 

I assume your goal by this change is to increase damage dealt. Too much damage is the problem of 40k, so I'm happy with anything that reduces damage, as long as it is balanced points wise and Legion-wise.

 

And IMHO the current wound allocation is that. If you decide to give AA to a Sergeant, you might make more saves, but you also risk loosing a point of Ld. And as you put him in harms way, you might not equip him with a cc-weapon, as he will be most likely too dead to use it.

 

For the same reason I think that changing the shooting reaction was a bad choice. For one all other reactions happen after the deed. Move obviously, but you also know whether the charge succeeded. And secondly it shifts balance in favour to the attacker. And everything that shifts balance to the attacker will increase damage and shorten the game.

 

I play shooty armies so "Wound Allocation" as it is and the old way of Shoot-Reactions hurt me as much as any other guy. I still think they make the game better.

 

Anyway. The alternative way to make lesser troops more attractive would be to make them cheaper (or Sv2+) more expensive.

 

Regarding the Vindicator. A 3" template and unit coherency of 2" seems silly regardless of weapon and carrier. If there is enough space for the defender a roll of the hit symbol will result in a single model hit. In my experience most of the time you get 4+ infantry models under the 3" template due to lack of space. You will wound on a 2+, you will have instant death against infantry, you kill Sv3 and worse, have rending 6+ and sunder. That will hurt even a Spartan with flare shield. With brutal 3 and rending 6 there will be a 44% chance of a wound being not saved (and so a kill) against Termies. A tad worse than the 50% chance of AP2 against a Cataphractii, and better than a Plasma Cannon, which will have a 50% chance of AP2 and than a 50% chance of an invul and no instant death. So it's ok against Cataphractii. Against Sv3 troops, it depends on how long the artificer armour holds (43% of a fail with Brutal 3).

 

The Vindicator costs as much as a Predator. I find them different in use but comparable in usefulness. But for 30 points the Predator turns into a heavy-whatever killer that puts the Vindicator to shame, except in some special cases. But the Vindicator often survives a turn longer or at least soaks up more fire. I've just printed an additional three and will see how it goes, if I field more than one.

 

Right now I see rules-wise neither a big problem with wound allocation, nor the Vindicator.

Wound allocation is prone to frustration. For the Attacker when all shots are tanked and for the Defender when one of the first two rolls is failed. All other occurrences are quickly forgotten, you will remember only the drama. Probably all the drama is the reason why some dislike this kind of allocation so much.

I will use more Vindicators in my next games, so I might revise my opinion on the Vindicator - games will tell.

 

 

 

Edited January 6, 2023 by Brumbaer

[SkimaskMohawk]

@The Unseen those aren't terrible things though? It was a mechanic that both players interacted with; want to maximise flamer hits? Chance of him dying earlier. Don't want your front rank getting gunned down as you advance? Risk your seargent to tank. Is having front to back more terrible than the defending player choosing the best models to pull in every given situation? I don't think so.

 

Interestingly your suggestion is basically how 5th Eds wound allocation worked, and the initial set of heresy rules in Betrayal were certainly designed with 5th in mind. The biggest downside of 5th allocation  would have been prevented by homogeneously armed units with 1 wound, and also would have strongly diluted the impact of artificer in units. Even units that could mix and match wargear to create 5 individual models were still mostly 1 wound, justaerin being the one real standout (but maybe explaining their absurd original cost).

 

@Brumbaer you're kind of misrepresenting a few things.

 

People don't have problems with artificer on a tac seargent, or even an IC attached to that unit; they have problems with multiwound units with an attached IC. You can juggle wounds across the seargent and IC to maintain maximum unit strength for as long as possible. Instead of needing an average of 6 wounds for a trooper to kill a multiwound model with 3+, you now need to an average of 24 to take off the seargent and ICs ablative wounds and kill a guy. It compounds with primarchs as they have 6 wounds, an invul, it will not die, and sometimes further damage mitigation; I've won games because curze and the Raptor seargent absorbed the majority of the hits and kept the unit output as high as possible. You take it one step further with cenobium and suzerains who are all characters and you have a merry go round of wounded models at full output. 

 

Claiming that taking casualties from the front adds hours of positioning is dumb. It didnt. It added a couple of minutes to each game, especially after years of playing with it. 

 

The Vindicator sucks into cataphractii because they get to rerolls failed saves vs blast weapons, averaging a rounded 0.09 chance to fail. The Vindicator also sucks against the flare-spartan because a single pen doesn't mean much if it can't explode; the best you can hope for is an immobilized, which needs you to roll two 6s in a row for a 0.05 chance after sunder. It also sucks against contemptors with an average of 0.43 wounds dealt per shot. It doesn't absorb more firepower than a predator because no one has any real reason to shoot at them other than kill points.

[Brumbaer]

31 minutes ago, SkimaskMohawk said:

Claiming that taking casualties from the front adds hours of positioning is dumb. It didnt. It added a couple of minutes to each game, especially after years of playing with it. 

 

I agree that hours is an exaggeration - a quite common rhetoric method I've been told - so I detest being called dumb. I play wargames for more than 30 years and some of them use(d) "taking losses from the front". In my experience it adds time, depending on the players a lot or some. Some people need ages (note this is an  exaggeration) to move a single unit even without that. No matter how little or much time is wasted, it will make AA for the Sergeant near useless and your characters will be sniped at by fast units or deepstrike, if you put them at some edge away from the obvious thread or by templates. Ask Epic Orc player who use small Tank units with 2 Zap Guns. In Epic they even modified the shooting rules for flyers to prevent that kind of sniping.

 

44 minutes ago, SkimaskMohawk said:

The Vindicator sucks into cataphractii because they get to rerolls failed saves vs blast weapons, averaging a rounded 0.09 chance to fail.

You're right, I forgot the heavy rule, thanks for pointing that out.  But the chance to fail is 24%. One of 5 wounds is a rend and you re-roll armour saves only. That's 10% (50% / 5). The weapon has brutal 3, so you have to fail at least one in 3 saves twice in a row. To make 3 saves in a row is 58%, to Fail is 42%. To fail twice in a row is 18%. That being 4 of 5 cases gets it down to 14% plus the 10% in the other case is 24%.

54 minutes ago, SkimaskMohawk said:

The Vindicator also sucks against the flare-spartan because a single pen doesn't mean much if it can't explode; the best you can hope for is an immobilized, which needs you to roll two 6s in a row for a 0.05 chance after sunder

I'm missing something. It's strength 10 (-2 for flare shield), so you need a 4 for glance, a 5 for a pen. It's an ordnance weapon, so to get a pen it's a 5+ on any of 2 dices. To not roll a 5 on one of two dices is 44%. With sunder this goes down to 20% chance to not penetrate or 6,25% to not at least a glance. 93.75% chance to get at least a glance. I take that. With a nuncio somewhere and the size of the Spartan a hit is nearly assured. The Magna/Lascannon Predator has much worse chances for the same price. 5 unbuffed Lascannons do an average of 1 glance for 150 points. That fits. The Lascannons can potentially do more harm, but can't pen and have only snap shots when they move. 

I heartily disagree that everything but an explosion doesn't count. I'm happy for a weapon destroyed or an immobilised or just for the hp lost. Which allows my Javelins to give it the killing blow from the sides. And I'm happy, if my opponents ignores a Vindicator. 

1 hour ago, SkimaskMohawk said:

People don't have problems with artificer on a tac seargent, or even an IC attached to that unit; they have problems with multiwound units with an attached IC. You can juggle wounds across the seargent and IC to maintain maximum unit strength for as long as possible. Instead of needing an a

I said that units with multiple troopers that are characters (e.e. 4 Sergeants or all characters) are wrong, this shouldn't exist. The solution would not be to change wound allocation, but to have one Sergeant and 3 Corporals, which are just not characters.

I assume by the numbers used  multi-wound is a 2 wound model. So you have a Sergeant. You will need 12 Shots to kill him and than you are back to 6 per model. As I wrote the cost of an Tartaros is less than that of a comparable Tactical Sergeant who has only one wound. A multi wound model will be even more expensive as it's more expensive than a Tactical Sergeant. You have payed for those additional 6 wounds needed for a kill. 

For Independent Characterss you pay 60+ points and if you have just bought a Centurion not an Consule to boost the troop. You payed the price of 2 Cataphractii to get the tankiness of less than 1 of them. You're welcome to do so.

 

And please do not forget, you always have the possibility to choose to shoot with weapons that instantly kill or have AP2, if the unit is so important to be killed immediately and/or so important that it warrants a 70 points buf.

 

I wonder what other games you play besides HH. It might give me a better idea what you expect from a game.

 

Feel free to check the numbers, my wife reminds me that we ave an appointment, so I have to stop and can't check them once again.

[SkimaskMohawk]

22 minutes ago, Brumbaer said:

I agree that hours is an exaggeration - a quite common rhetoric method I've been told - so I detest being called dumb. I play wargames for more than 30 years and some of them use(d) "taking losses from the front". In my experience it adds time, depending on the players a lot or some. Some people need ages (note this is an  exaggeration) to move a single unit even without that. No matter how little or much time is wasted, it will make AA for the Sergeant near useless and your characters will be sniped at by fast units or deepstrike, if you put them at some edge away from the obvious thread or by templates.

 

I still play 1st edition heresy with some of my friends. Time incurred by positioning models is negligible, in the same way that checking blast hits and vehicle armour facings are. Adding a couple of minutes to ~2½ hours is a non-factor. People being grossly indecisive is what it is; they'll take too much time making any decision. 

 

And being outmaneuvered by your opponent should have some sort of payoff; good tactics should be rewarded. In 1st if my buddy used javelins to get closest to a seargent to burn him down with multimeltas then that's on me for not recognizing the potential and burying the seargent. But to say the seargent is useless is another gross exaggeration, especially when it came to melee wound allocation. 

 

33 minutes ago, Brumbaer said:

You're right, I forgot the heavy rule, thanks for pointing that out.  But the chance to fail is 24%. One of 5 wounds is a rend and you re-roll armour saves only. That's 10% (50% / 5). The weapon has brutal 3, so you have to fail at least one in 3 saves twice in a row. To make 3 saves in a row is 58%, to Fail is 42%. To fail twice in a row is 18%. That being 4 of 5 cases gets it down to 14% plus the 10% in the other case is 24%.

 

The chance to simply fail an armour save is the rounded 9%. The chance to get wounded and fail an armour save is a rounded 6%. The chance to get wounded, rended, and fail an invul is a rounded 26%. I'm not sure what math you're doing.

 

41 minutes ago, Brumbaer said:

I'm missing something. It's strength 10 (-2 for flare shield), so you need a 4 for glance, a 5 for a pen. It's an ordnance weapon, so to get a pen it's a 5+ on any of 2 dices. To not roll a 5 on one of two dices is 44%. With sunder this goes down to 20% chance to not penetrate or 6,25% to not at least a glance. 93.75% chance to get at least a glance. I take that. With a nuncio somewhere and the size of the Spartan a hit is nearly assured.The Magna/Lascannon Predator has much worse chances for the same price. 5 unbuffed Lascannons do an average of 1 glance for 150 points. That fits. The Lascannons can potentially do more harm, but can't pen and have only snap shots when they move. 

 

You're right it's only a 5+ to pen and I also forgot about ordnance. Let's say your math is right; 80% chance to pen and a 17% chance to immobilize it for a total of 13.6% a shot, assuming it hits every time. That's bad for 120. A hull point a turn is bad. 

 

The melta predator has a much higher general threat range than the 29" of the Vindicator and an effective 30" for melta threat. It can use that speed to flank a flare shield, but even if it shoots straight into it you average 1.1 pens, with a 50% chance to immobilize after that. It can also just kill more infantry models and threaten contemptors and Leviathans. 

 

The lascannon heavy support is bad into Spartans, but again, have a much higher threat range and are better into everything else like contemptors; the real threat. 

 

1 hour ago, Brumbaer said:

I said that units with multiple troopers that are characters (e.e. 4 Sergeants or all characters) are wrong, this shouldn't exist. The solution would not be to change wound allocation, but to have one Sergeant and 3 Corporals, which are just not characters.

 

Your first 4 or so paragraphs are about a 1 wound seargent in artificer armour in a squad of 1 wound power armour guys. You wonder what the problem people have with wound allocation is, and it really isn't that simple case that you talk about for 4 paragraphs and change. 

 

1 hour ago, Brumbaer said:

I assume by the numbers used  multi-wound is a 2 wound model. So you have a Sergeant. You will need 12 Shots to kill him and than you are back to 6 per model. As I wrote the cost of an Tartaros is less than that of a comparable Tactical Sergeant who has only one wound. A multi wound model will be even more expensive as it's more expensive than a Tactical Sergeant. You have payed for those additional 6 wounds needed for a kill.

 

I don't know why you're doing a weird tartaros point efficiency comparison to tacticals when the latter aren't a multiwound unit. The tartaros can in fact be the multi wound unit; even without a character you can just allocate to the seargent until the first wound and then allocate to the trooper, absorbing an average of 6 successful wounds and raising the initial needed amount to get a killed model to 18.

 

But ignoring all that, that's still not what I said was the issue; the combination of an attached IC to a multi wound unit was.

 

1 hour ago, Brumbaer said:

For Independent Characterss you pay 60+ points and if you have just bought a Centurion not an Consule to boost the troop. You payed the price of 2 Cataphractii to get the tankiness of less than 1 of them. You're welcome to do so.

 

You have to buy an HQ. Unless you play Fury of the Ancients or Armoured Spearhead that compulsory HQ will almost always be an IC. If you have a unit of cataphractii, you will almost always have an IC that can join them and add another 6 successful wounds to the buffer pool, increasing it to an average minimum of 24 before a model gets killed.

 

1 hour ago, Brumbaer said:

And please do not forget, you always have the possibility to choose to shoot with weapons that instantly kill or have AP2, if the unit is so important to be killed immediately and/or so important that it warrants a 70 points buf.

 

That's definitely an option if you have the opportunity, and one of the reasons why it's just easier to take lascannons than anything that relies on either ap2 or instant death individually. But it loses a lot of its impact against primarch led squads, and ignores that wound allocation happens in melee. Where it's even easier to manipulate.

[Mandragola]

Wound allocation manipulation seems to be designed in. For example, in a unit dark furies, I have three choosers of the slain. They’re all characters with two wounds and a 2+ save. If people fire bolters at them they’ll have to wound all three of these guys, plus perhaps any attached ICs, before the normal guys with 3+’saves are bothered.

 

I can’t really see how they could have arrived at this situation by mistake. After all, these rules are based on 3rd edition 40K, from way back in the 90s. There have been wound allocation rules in 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th editions that they could have used. None of them were perfect but the could well have learned from them. Surely this mess could have been avoided. 

[Brumbaer]

23 hours ago, SkimaskMohawk said:

The chance to simply fail an armour save is the rounded 9%. The chance to get wounded and fail an armour save is a rounded 6%. The chance to get wounded, rended, and fail an invul is a rounded 26%. I'm not sure what math you're doing.

If a Cataphractii is wounded by an Demolisher, you will have rolled a 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 to wound

If you have rolled a 6, the Cataphractii has a 4+ invul. But the weapon has brutal 3 (I forgot that again) So to survive the Cataphractii has to roll 3 times 4+ in a row. The chance to do so is 0.5 * 0.5 * 0.5 or 0.125. So to fail the save and die will be 1 - 0.125 = 0.875

 

If you have rolled a 2 to 5, the Cataphractii will have to save 2+, but because of heavy may reroll that. To pass 3 times 2+ that will be  .833  *  .833  *  .833  = 0.58. So to fail it is 0.42. But you will have to fail twice which results in 0.18. 

 

So in one of 5 cases the probability of a kill is 0.875 and in 4 cases it is 0.18. That is (0.875 + 4 *0.18) / 5 in average 0,319. 

 

So the probability to kill a Cataphractii after wound is 32%. Sorry about forgetting Brutal for the invul case before.

23 hours ago, SkimaskMohawk said:

But ignoring all that, that's still not what I said was the issue; the combination of an attached IC to a multi wound unit was.

 

23 hours ago, SkimaskMohawk said:

You have to buy an HQ. Unless you play Fury of the Ancients or Armoured Spearhead that compulsory HQ will almost always be an IC. If you have a unit of cataphractii, you will almost always have an IC that can join them and add another 6 successful wounds to the buffer pool, increasing it to an average minimum of 24 before a model gets killed.

You say it is a problem, I say it is not because, you pay more than what you would have to pay for a Terminator with a better tankiness, because of his better invul. For the sake of simplicity a Terminator shall cost 30 points. For 210 points, you get 7 models. If you put 24 wounds on that unit, you will inflict 4 wounds and 2 models die, which leaves you with 5 models. If you buy 5 Termies and a Centurion, you will have spent the same 210 points. If you allocate wounds to the Sergeant and  the IC, you will kill 1 Termie and have 2 models reduced to 1 wound. So you're left with 4 models and two models reduced to 1 wound. Or 5 models to 6 models, but the same number of wounds left. I agree you will have more attacks left. I still do not see that as a problem. You seem to do, so let's agree to disagree.

 

23 hours ago, SkimaskMohawk said:

The melta predator has a much higher general threat range than the 29" of the Vindicator and an effective 30" for melta threat. It can use that speed to flank a flare shield, but even if it shoots straight into it you average 1.1 pens, with a 50% chance to immobilize after that. It can also just kill more infantry models and threaten contemptors and Leviathans. 

 

The lascannon heavy support is bad into Spartans, but again, have a much higher threat range and are better into everything else like contemptors; the real threat.

I do not argue about the general advantage of the Magna-Predator. I was talking about the threat to a flare shield Spartan. And about the relative cost in this case. A Lascanon Squad is great, if you do not have to move it and it has a LOS that stretches far. But if you're not playing Deathguard and your FoF is restricted, you loose at least one round of effective shooting. And yes you can buff the Lascannon squad. But ... if you reduce it to the basic units point cost and to shooting at a flare shield Spartan, I find the points ok. And I do not mind the Vindicator for 120 points to be not able to luckily kill a 400+ points model.

I just realise that we most likely play different LOS rules anyway, and that your FOF will  rarely be restricted. We play that LOS goes into/outof terrain, but never through, so you can hide behind buildings, forest, whatever. If you play with "real LOS" the Vindicator will be at a disadvantage just because of its limited range.

 

Anyway, I'm starting to repeat myself. I will not convince you, you will not convince me, so I stop.

I'm looking forward to my games with 3 Vindicators even they will not be relevant to this threat because of the assumed difference in LOS handling.

[SkimaskMohawk]

2 hours ago, Brumbaer said:

If a Cataphractii is wounded by an Demolisher, you will have rolled a 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 to wound

If you have rolled a 6, the Cataphractii has a 4+ invul. But the weapon has brutal 3 (I forgot that again) So to survive the Cataphractii has to roll 3 times 4+ in a row. The chance to do so is 0.5 * 0.5 * 0.5 or 0.125. So to fail the save and die will be 1 - 0.125 = 0.875

 

If you have rolled a 2 to 5, the Cataphractii will have to save 2+, but because of heavy may reroll that. To pass 3 times 2+ that will be  .833  *  .833  *  .833  = 0.58. So to fail it is 0.42. But you will have to fail twice which results in 0.18. 

 

So in one of 5 cases the probability of a kill is 0.875 and in 4 cases it is 0.18. That is (0.875 + 4 *0.18) / 5 in average 0,319. 

 

So the probability to kill a Cataphractii after wound is 32%. Sorry about forgetting Brutal for the invul case before.

 

You need to calculate the wound roll to determine output of the demolisher. Yes, needing to roll a 4+ 3x in a row averages 0.125 successes. But, its not accurate to use that for brutal because you're only solving for a single wound; a model that isn't getting instant killed won't have their lost wounds represented properly. So let's say we use that value and calculate the chance to rend: 0.17x0.875=0.14875per hit to kill a Terminator via rending. Which is a worse value than doing Chance of rend X Brutal value X Chance of passing invul; 0.255 per hit. 

 

The next part has the same flaw of treating brutal as a reroll, while also not calculating heavy's reroll properly. It's either 0.9711x0.9711x0.9711=0.9157 successes/0.0843 fails per wound using your method, or 0.0867 fails per wound using mine. Per hit it's 0.055776/0.0575688 fails.

 

Now if we do 0.875 +(0.0843x4)=1.2122÷5 we get 0.242 dead terminators per hit. With the other numbers I've already taken the wound chance into account so, it should be (0.255+0.0575688)x0.5=0.1562 dead terminators per hit.

 

But regardless of whether its at 0.32, at 0.242, or at 0.1562 , it's still terrible for a heavy support slot. 

 

2 hours ago, Brumbaer said:

You say it is a problem, I say it is not because, you pay more than what you would have to pay for a Terminator with a better tankiness, because of his better invul. For the sake of simplicity a Terminator shall cost 30 points. For 210 points, you get 7 models. If you put 24 wounds on that unit, you will inflict 4 wounds and 2 models die, which leaves you with 5 models. If you buy 5 Termies and a Centurion, you will have spent the same 210 points. If you allocate wounds to the Sergeant and  the IC, you will kill 1 Termie and have 2 models reduced to 1 wound. So you're left with 4 models and two models reduced to 1 wound. Or 5 models to 6 models, but the same number of wounds left. I agree you will have more attacks left. I still do not see that as a problem. You seem to do, so let's agree to disagree.

 

You have to buy the HQ. It's in the list.  You have to spend 60 points before you can buy 150 of terminators or 210 of terminators. If I take a full squad of 10, and stick my compulsory centurion with them, I get a free 2 wounds before a model dies. This is an average of 12 more saves, or a minimum of 18 traditional shots (if they hit and wound on 2s), that my opponent needs to make to reduce my units output. The more guys left alive means more unit output, more options for melee allocation where you can break engagement range, and more bodies to go though before it gets to the IC, who usually has more output on a mode to model basis.

 

You win games by making your opponent overcommit their resources. If playing the wound allocation game with a base Centurion attached to a tartaros unit forces my opponent to come up with 18 more  bs 5 STR 6 shots to start reducing their effectiveness than that's win; the common bolter would be 36. A primarch-led unit is 56/108, and does a lot more for most armies than an equivalent amount of points of terminators. 

 

2 hours ago, Brumbaer said:

do not argue about the general advantage of the Magna-Predator. I was talking about the threat to a flare shield Spartan. And about the relative cost in this case. A Lascanon Squad is great, if you do not have to move it and it has a LOS that stretches far. But if you're not playing Deathguard and your FoF is restricted, you loose at least one round of effective shooting. And yes you can buff the Lascannon squad. But ... if you reduce it to the basic units point cost and to shooting at a flare shield Spartan, I find the points ok. And I do not mind the Vindicator for 120 points to be not able to luckily kill a 400+ points model.

I just realise that we most likely play different LOS rules anyway, and that your FOF will  rarely be restricted. We play that LOS goes into/outof terrain, but never through, so you can hide behind buildings, forest, whatever. If you play with "real LOS" the Vindicator will be at a disadvantage just because of its limited range.

 

But the magna melta has a better threat to the flare shielded spartan. The math shows it; higher chance to pen, higher chance to do hull points, higher chance to explode. It's 160 points to be able to luckily kill a 400+ point model.

 

Las HSS might lose los to some stuff, but similarly a vindi will lose range and arc. 

 

And our LOS rules seem similar, but ours are effectively harsher as we do real LOS but tend to have very few ground-level openings. 

 

The Vindicator is just not very good against most marine units. It is very good against mechanicum where you scoop entire automata.

[Dark Legionnare]

@SkimaskMohawkBeen playing myself since late 3rd. (Hiatus'd during 6th and 7th) Help Jog my memory if you can. 

Aside from the "different loadout" shenanigans (I remember the dark days of GK paladins...) wasn't 5th ed "closest model" BUT it had a stipulation for ignoring special/heavy/purchased-w-points by lore-excusing it as "the marine behind his dying squadmate would easily pick up his fallen brother's plasma gun" or such?

As for the topic at large of "casualty removal"  as much as I hated "closest model" first when I first ran into it years ago because I was a dumb kid, I (and friends) eventually adapted to it.  Removing models closest and within line of sight is a very good system. 

 

(Excluding Rhino-gap-sniping, which I never saw, only heard stories off from either 6th or 7th... But if someone is doing that, why would anybody want to be playing them?  There's a very large, clear line between "smart, tactical landspeeder positioning" to scalpel a sarge and "abusing RAW")

 

Also, like @Gorgoff said: For the love of everything holy... just give the Vindi's, etc... their large blasts back.

Edited January 10, 2023 by Dark Legionnare