][ Damage Analysis for 10th Edition ][

[Valerian]

Stolen from Reddit.  This all was done by u/DontPanic_OW, not me.

 

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This is something I've been doing for fun, and figured I'd share it with y'all. This analysis was done using a custom script I wrote in MATLAB. Here's the results:

 

Total Effective Damage Chart

 

Damage per Point Chart

 

A Couple Notes

• This is in terms of "Effective Damage", basically accounting for over damaging models with, say 2 damage against a 1 wound target.
• Terminators and Paladins are all in squads of 5, Terminators have a narthecium and banner and paladins have a banner. Terminators have 1 Psycannon and Paladins have 3 Psycannons.
• For Voldus and the Brotherhood librarian a flat damage amount was added to the effective damage table based on the average mortal wounds for their abilities.
• This is combined melee + ranged damage, and assumes you can get a charge off. If people want only ranged or melee damage I can run that analysis, or any analysis really.
• Purifiers do not have the +1 to hit from losing a model or +1 to wound by being below half strength, so most of the time their damage output will be better than what's shown here.
• The rightmost column on Damage per Point is the "Combined Score", which takes Land Raider, Dreadnought, Terminators, Intercessors, and Cadian Infantry and divides the efficiency for them by the maximum efficiency any unit has against that target, and then averages those 5. I chose those 5 because they seem like a good spread of what targets to generally expect, but any other input here is welcome.

Takeaways

Base Terminators and Paladins

• At base, Terminators are more efficient against Targets T8 or greater, while Paladins are more efficient against T7 or lower. This is because of Paladins hitting on a 2+, but not getting lethal hits, while terminators hit on a 3+ but get lethal hits.
• Paladins get -1 to wound against them, while terminators revive 1/turn. The Terminator ability is definitely better, but if your unit is wiped this isn't helpful, whereas the -1 to wound may prevent you from being wiped in the first place. I guess it depends on if the -1 to wound averages out to a paladin model not going down, but I won't analyze that here.
• In general, every character option we have increases the damage efficiency of both terminators and paladins, so I wouldn't take them without a leader.

Brother-Captain

• This is probably the best character to put on terminators and paladins from a raw damage perspective. The Sustained Hits 1 for Psycannons makes this particularly powerful with Paladins, 4 Psycannons with Sustained Hits 1 is very effective, this is our most point efficient option against intercessors. The Brother-Captain himself having wound re-rolls only increases the damage efficiency further. However, there are no defensive abilities from him, which is the tradeoff here.
• I would definitely take a squad of 5 paladins with Psycannons + a Brother Captain with a Psycannon, it gives us some good ranged firepower that isn't purgation squads (more on that later)

Grand Master Voldus

• Voldus is a pretty good all-rounder in terms of efficiency, performing basically the same with Terminators or Paladins in those terms. What really makes Voldus stand out is the -1 to hit this unit. Combined with the -1 to wound that Paladins get, and this can be a very tanky unit. This may not be great to just sit on a point with against ranged armies, as the mortal wounds Voldus does can only be done in melee.

Brother-Captain Stern

• This ends up being a bit better with Paladins than Terminators at base due to paladins hitting more often, and therefore having more possible critical wounds which deal an additional mortal wound. Reviving himself 83% of the time when going down is also a big plus.

Brotherhood Chaplain

• The +1 to wound is great, and the leadership debuff aura is good. A straight up overall buff to a terminator or paladin unit.
• I treated him as a leader, however, he might be able to attack to any of the other terminator and paladin units with a leader? He doesn't have the leader keyword, but it says he can attach to those units. From my understanding this means you can have two units attached to a unit, but I think this is an error that will be fixed. Otherwise I'd give this guy the +1 to charge rolls enhancement and add him to Kaldor's unit for a 5 inch charge out of deep strike (I think that's how that might work?)

Kaldor Draigo

• Draigo doesn't have any damage boosting abilities, but ends up with great damage output simply due to Draigo alone. He also geta lethal hits on charge when with a unit of terminators, which with his +3 inch charge is a must take. 4+ FNP against all mortal wounds is also great against devastating wounds, especially anything with an anti-infantry or anti-psyker keyword with devastating wounds.
• I would take Draigo with a unit of 5 Terminators.

Brotherhood Librarian

• The Librarian is good, providing a flat 4MW boost to any unit he's attached to. The 4+ FNP against psychic attacks isn't bad, but I only see this being really useful vs thousand sons, since they can just turn off our saves.
• However, I don't think the Librarian needs to be taken in a unit, its more of a glass cannon approach since he blows himself up 6% of the time (not failed, loses all wounds) and doesn't have a FNP against psychic when alone. Alone, however, he has some of the most efficient damage against everything (apart from Draigo alone and GMNDK vs vehicles) except for intercessors and light infantry. Again, a bit of a glass cannon, but it's a lot of damage. There's also a funny thing you can do where you take three librarians at the end of your opponents turn, and then teleport them in to wherever is needed and snipe, let's say Magnus the Red.
• Edit: Realized that I forgot to account for Mortarion's FNP for the librarian, although it doesn't change any of the conclusions made here. I included the Daemon Primarchs to see how Draigo's Anti-Daemon does.

Dreadknights

• Dreadknights... aren't great... Terminators have basically the same damage efficiency as a NDK with a greathammer vs tough units, and higher damage efficiency vs less tough units. The damage efficiency of the greatsword is just horrible all around. The advance and shoot + charge is a plus, but with the mobility we have with everything else we have it's less of a factor, in my opinion.
• The GMNDK, however, is amazing. The hit, wound, and damage rerolls vs vehicles and monsters makes this thing a beast of efficiency against these targets. Definitely worth taking at least 1 for use against anything tough. Adding the Domina Liber Daemonica makes this even more efficient. Anything T13 or less is going to be wounded on a 2+, amazing. Either that or the Sigil to not have him destroyed after an initial deep strike charge if things don't go well.

Venerable Dreadnought

• I didn't do a damage analysis here, I just wanted to say how much I wish we could teleport this thing in to get those sweet re-roll hit and wound 1's anywhere we need on the board.

Castellan Crowe with Purifiers

• Either of these units alone are horrible options, but combined they are some of the best anti-infantry units we have. They're a little bit more efficient with some incinerators than full melee (no special weapons), but this isn't accounting for the +1 to hit once a model is lost. I think both are fine, and I thematically like the ideas of purifiers with purifying flame also using an incinerator. The incinerators will also help with things that have FNP or invulnerable saves vs psychic attacks.
• When the faction focus came out initially and I saw the purifying flame profile I was a bit disappointed, but Castellan Crowe doubling their attacks makes them very useful vs light infantry. I'd definitely take Castellan Crowe + 10 Purifiers.

Strike Squads

• Strike squads, as I'm sure they're supposed to be, are pretty good all-rounders. Having a unit or maybe two to teleport around the board and get sticky objectives is definitely not a bad thing, and is pretty good utility for 135 points.
• Interceptors are basically the same, but without sticky objectives. I personally don't see the reason to take interceptors, as shooting a bunch of storm bolters and a single special weapon and then moving 6 inches away will do hardly anything.
• The brotherhood champion seems good on paper, but is just too expensive. He significantly drops the efficiency of strikes for fights first and precision for himself. I also wouldn't be putting strikes into combat too much, they are much more useful as objective utility I think, so you shouldn't want fights first on strikes in the first place. If somebody else sees something I don't hear please let me know. If he was somewhere around 55 points it would make sense to have him leading a unit of strikes, but he's 85 points right now. Oh and on top of that I don't believe that strikes keep their 6" Scout ability if the brotherhood champion is leading them.

Purgators

• They're just... bad? I get the indirect fire and torrent thing with incinerators is good, but they're just so horribly inefficient against anything that isn't light infantry or intercessors. I don't see why you'd take these rather than Castellan Crowe with a bunch of Purifiers.

Conclusion

• I think most lists should have, at least, the following
  • Kaldor Draigo with 5 or 10 Terminators (charge out of deep strike)
  • Castellan Crowe with 10 Purifiers (light infantry damage)
  • Grand Master in Nemesis Dreadknight (vehicle and monster damage)
  • Brotherhood Librarians, alone or with Terminators or Paladins (raw mortal wounds)
  • A unit of 5 Strikes (objective utility)
• Grand Master Voldus and the Brother-Captain seem like a tradeoff between if you want more damage or if you want to be more tanky. Most of the other characters seem basically ok, none of our character and terminator / paladin combinations seem bad. Leaving terminators or paladins alone doesn't seem that good though.
• Terminator / Paladin units of 5 seem preferable, as 10 becomes very expensive, and that leaves us vulnerable to abilities which debuff an entire unit, like thousand sons turning off all armor saves.
• 3 Librarians for 330 points going around doing an average 12 MW to whatever they want seems very, very, good. 

 

I hope some of y'all found this interesting! I also hope I caught any errors this time! I checked quite a few more of these manually this time around, so I think it's good. If enough people want it I can do different melee and ranged damage breakdowns, or analysis of our vehicle options.

[Helias_Tancred]

Thank you for your serious analysis work!! An incredible help!!

 

 

Edited June 23, 2023 by Eilio Tiberius

[Helias_Tancred]

Also, our Brotherhood Librarian can be a lone wolf? I thought he had to be attached to a terminator or paladin unit?

 

Thanks.

 

 

 

 

[Marshall Bretton]

I don't think you have to attach any character to a unit? They can all run around on their own although only certain ones (none of ours I don't think) get the lone operative keyword that stops them being targeted unless they are the closest unit.

 

Thanks for the analysis, think I'm going to have to convert myself a stern model to start running. Shame paladins aren't what they used to be, I was building a force based on them but I guess I will switch back to standard terminators

[Valerian]

9 hours ago, Eilio Tiberius said:

Also, our Brotherhood Librarian can be a lone wolf? I thought he had to be attached to a terminator or paladin unit?

 

Thanks.

 

Librarians do not get the Lone Operative ability, but nothing requires any Character with the Leader ability to attach to other units.  It's generally smarter to do that, though, as they are protected by their bodyguard, and most Leaders give an ability to the unit that they attach to.

 

Without Lone Operative, a Librarian can be targeted by any unit with LOS that's within the range of their weapons (whereas with Lone Operative, you can only be targeted within 12").  So, to run one or more Librarians unattached, you have to be very careful with deployment and movement, to keep them out of LOS as much as possible.  Luckily, our Teleport Assault faction ability means that you can move them around all you want each turn, and you can Mists of Deimos away, too, for a CP/

[jimboslice]

Thank you for the effort going through all these units!

[Marshall Bretton]

Just noticed something in the librarian rules,

 

The vortex of doom has the psychic key word.

Librarians give their unit a 4+ feel no pain against psychic attacks.

Feel no pain can be used against mortal wounds.

Does this mean that if we roll a 1 for vortex of doom and the unit takes mortal wounds, we can use the fnp to try and block them?

[Helycon]

1 hour ago, Gaius Maximus said:

Just noticed something in the librarian rules,

 

The vortex of doom has the psychic key word.

Librarians give their unit a 4+ feel no pain against psychic attacks.

Feel no pain can be used against mortal wounds.

Does this mean that if we roll a 1 for vortex of doom and the unit takes mortal wounds, we can use the fnp to try and block them?

No, since that specific bit doesn't have the psychic attack. Also, you mean the hazardous roll, yes? Rolling a one to hit no longer automatically perils 

 

Feel no Pain against psychic attacks doesn't work on 'normal' mortal wounds either, since they aren't a psychic source themselves.

[Marshall Bretton]

So the specific wording is:

 

Vortex of doom (psychic)

In your shooting phase you can select one enemy unit within 18" of and visible to this psyker and roll one d6: on a 1, this psykers unit suffers d6 mortal wounds; on a 2-5 that enemy unit suffers 2d3 mortal wounds; on a 6, that enemy unit suffers 2d6 mortal wounds.

 

 

So no it's not a perils roll, it's specifically in the ability rules and the whole ability has the psychic keyword meaning the wounds are psychic?

 

I still think my interpretation is right and we can use the fnp to block this.

Edited July 5, 2023 by Gaius Maximus

[Helycon]

7 minutes ago, Gaius Maximus said:

So the specific wording is:

 

Vortex of doom (psychic)

In your shooting phase you can select one enemy unit within 18" of and visible to this psyker and roll one day: on a 1, this psykers unit suffers d6 mortal wounds; on a 2-5 that enemy unit suffers 2d3 mortal wounds; on a 6, that enemy unit suffers 2d6 mortal wounds.

 

 

So no it's not a perils roll, it's specifically in the ability rules and the whole ability has the psychic keyword meaning the wounds are psychic?

 

I still think my interpretation is right and we can use the fnp to block this.

Ah, I see, apologies! I was having a quick break at work and noticed the topic, didn't have the index handy.

 

There it would make sense, yes. 

[Demiurge]

Greetings.

 

Rules commentary:

Psychic Attacks: Any attack made with a weapon that has the [PSYCHIC] ability is a Psychic Attack. Any mortal wounds inflicted by an ability that has the ‘Psychic’ tag are also Psychic Attacks.

 

Librarian :

Vortex of Doom (Psychic)

 

Sanctic Hood: While this model is leading a unit, models
in that unit have the Feel No Pain 4+ ability against
Psychic Attacks.

 

Unit with librarian have FnP against mortal wound from Vortex of doom miscast.