No One's Maths Thread (Mostly GSC)

[mattblowers]

Jan 6, 2017 13:15:00 GMT kazetanade said:

240 points for 8 T4 models... I feel like I'm playing T.Warriors all over again. Just trying to find something they're good at.

But if YOU say they're hard as nails... no harm trying. I have 12 anyway. Gotta have some merit if you like them. But overall I rather carry a FC if I'm running with Patty...

Love the first curse. It's awesome. Problem is everyone knows it's awesome and it's a huge bullet magnet. With this unit, you surprise people by putting pressure with your metamorphs and acolytes from the subuprising and they don't see this coming. Look out for S:8+ though as it really messes you up. Once you get stuck in you have a 5+ with 4+ FNP and a chance for 3+ FNP. Yes T:4 is an issue, but it's the toughest unit in the codex when you add in iconward and consider 2+ wounds per. The great thing about the unit is you don't have to worry about rends when going against, it hits hard and bypasses armor period; I've lost more than a few games with GSC when I just couldn't get enough rends to bring something down. GSC doesn't like to have to go multiple rounds of combat. Take half with picks and half with hammers.

[russellr]

One advantage of an 8-strong unit of aberrants is that people are likely to half-kill the unit, and then you can return to the shadows and re-deploy after adding D6 models.

[kazetanade]

The problem with abberants is the same problem you get with most Tyranids - overcosted for performance. In this case, equivalent points in Acolytes and Metamorphs or even First Curse output more damage on majority targets, and on average outperform Abberants even on tougher targets.

What matt says about rends is true though - averages are not consistent and rely completely on high numbers to create consistent effect. Losing 1 model cuts down the rend effectiveness by buckets.

As a side consideration, Abberants in a Sub Uprising gain shrouded - hiding your Iconward in that one means 3+ cover 4+ fnp with T4 W2, decently tanky. Bringing the Patty means it doesn't have to be from the Sub Up and hence gains flexibility on deployment. Patty also makes up for their abysmal initiative and can cut down threats before they strike the Abberants. If Abberants had a 4+ save I'd probably be a lot happier using them as a dedicated bodyguard unit, I consider 5+ armor to be "no armor" as many things that are not a chainsword bypasses it. This unit is definitely replacing FC as both of them cost way too much to field.

I still question what to charge with this unit, since anything in this codex deals with min sized marines pretty handily, NO obviously better targets presents itself. Like, NO way in hell are you charging these guys into Knights or WKs, which look like better use of their high S attacks.

@no One - my thoughts about BC survivability can be addressed by using Cult Detachment ICs - specifically the Magus, Primus, and Patty - to confer shrouded to the units. That would afford them the same protection as Sub Up units and cover one of their major weaknesses. Goliaths dont seem useful anymore and I might leave them with the Cavalcade list build - using more ranged units to harass and strike the enemy, and having only a few melee to handle key targets. Protected of course by Goliaths as they need to hit combat without taking too many casualties (generally Knight killing for me, if not warlord/melee deathstar slugfest, and lastly Artillery hunting)

Granted this is applicable only if you don't have a FC and don't mind not fishing for 3 CA dice. But without 8+ units of S. Uprising, I don't like the idea of all in fishing for 6s. I can't seem to make that many units without resorting to extreme MSU.

[kazetanade]

No One this is probably a dumb idea, but what's your gut feel and rough maths for using Neophytes as a pseudo assault element for their cost as compared to spamming more Acolytes?

Two things in mind - if their performance has a negligible difference to acolytes then it could be a worthwhile tactic to start bringing a lot of the Magus formation to give them all Fearless and tarpit the early game, making less Acolytes required for the CA consistency, making MSU without vehicles more viable, and making use of an otherwise subpar and underpowered unit. Could even bring in Neophyte Leaders with power mauls or something.

Initial gutfeel is that of course the difference is far too big to justify... But I've been wrong on many occasions. Better I ask someone who knows how to do it.

This came up mostly because I've spoken to a few people and also came upon some dakka posts that are heavily pushing Neophytes to be that best unit in GSC codex that makes it work (not necessarily the one that deals all the damage), and I'm curious whether they have an actual workable function other than their mediocre snapshotting shooting.

Also demo charges on T1 but... probably pointless to get into that gimmick, what with a 30+% chance? Of blowing yourself up.

[Hive Bahamut]

I have been an advocate for the Neophytes from the start. "They are just (please do not swear) shooty Militarum," is the response given in most cases. Experience tells me that assault using CA is almost useless without their support. Against a flamer tailored list? Neophytes are the ONLY troop doing consistent damage. Sure you won't face it everytime but the praises of Metamorphs and Acolytes die quick when the entire squad is removed from overwatch. 10 bodies for 50 is cheap.

They might have some of the same weapons but that's the only similarity.

The Mining Weapons seem to be their grace. I prefer Seismic almost every case, but have enjoyed using dual Mining Lasers in Chimera. The Heavy Weapons teams are lackluster with BS3 and only 1 per squad, although I find Doting Throng Neophytes to be quite ok with an Autocannon or Lascannon.

The numbers here have helped a lot with some factoring, but as always they can only prepare you for the odds. I really enjoy that others can crunch some numbers, because all I have to offer is limited experience.

The amount of times Seismic has carried the game is almost hard to admit. They seem expensive, but the quantity of shots with potential AP1 is great. A lot of the time if I'm able too I will try to maneuver with CA so one is in the 0-12" band and the other is 13-24". This way there is a good mix of hard and many.

I was going to try a melee kitted squad to float with a Doting Magus for the rerolls and fearless. Pick or Maul? 10 or 20 strong?

[gigasnail]

Don't play against tailored lists.

[kazetanade]

Hive Bahamut I'm actually in the later camp of neophytes are bad shooty militarium. With the snapshotting of heavy weapons on CA arrival our seismic cannon is pretty lack lustre and the unit is the same or more than an Acolyte 10man squad. If they had consistent damage it'd be fine but the 12-24" sadly does not produce enough results to contest their 0-12" profile, so they're not useful enough.

For me to say that Neophytes are "good" would be to find an alternative use for them, which has to be more than just "10 bodies for 50pts is cheap". Cheap but useless bodies remind me too much of termagants. Hence the premise of this question.

[Hive Bahamut]

I just use them like every other heavy weapon, GSC isn't the only army that snapshots heavy weapons. They can even have relentless, and can relocate (for snapshotting a turn,) to be useful again. Most have to wander and or run into position, or be useless for the rest of the game. Not all Heavy are 48"+

Don't get me wrong, a Command Squad with; Carapace Armour, Cloaks, 4 Melta guns and Fire At my Target has quickly become A Militarum favourite of mine. The lack of plasma and Melta really sucks, but that's why we have Ambush. To compensate for the requisitioned gear. I don't care about Militarum though. That is their codex, and comparing what we don't have has never worked.

What do you do when you can't rely on CA? Either due to bad rolls for charge, bad deployment, or bad match up? What would be a better use for them? Is there something I'm missing apart from having a limited scope of enemies (Deathwatch, Blood Angels, Grey Knights, Inquisition, Knight, Mechanicus/Skitarii, Orkz, Tau, Necrons, Militarum, Space Wolves, Daemons, Scions, Black Templar, KDK)

[kazetanade]

I believe there is a trend where you don't pick up heavy weapons unless you ARE relentless or have an insanely large range, but maybe that's just me and most people actually run their heavy weapons into place.

Being useful would connotate coming in and having an impact, and while bubblewrapping is an impact of itself, its not enough of one to justify bringing the unit just for that.

I don't know about you, but from my end the GK DW KDK enemies wouldn't be fazed by a unit, or even a few units of Neophyte popping in and shooting lasguns/snapshots at them. The SM enemies would laugh at being pelted by S3 AP- against vehicles or even normal marines on foot in most cases. Necrons would barely register their presence. Not unless you were shooting with a LOT of lasguns. Similar case, devilgants with 60 shots are enough to kill 5 marines on average, S3 may require nearly 80? So what are you giving up for the 80 lasgun shots?

Then on the other hand, its not hard for SM rapidtire to clear out these units. Kill off 6, 4 lasguns aren't a threat even to gaunts.

EDIT: Continuing on, so far my battle plans have been to place them in corners or to block/intercept deepstrikers when they roll 5s and below. Unless there's an important fight they need to reinforce that the enemy can't run away from/tasty targets that can't kill enough fast enough, I seldom keep them on the table with a bad roll. Keeping them on the table against any sort of fire power will bring to bear some pretty painful experiences, but this is only really serious in the first half of the game.

So far my priorities for list building is finding a way to bypass the insecurity of assaulting via CA on going second, with multiple considerations of how to go about doing it. But for the time being, the safest and most effective way is to hide as long as possible and strike once you fish your 6, while having a load of expendables to do scoring while you wait.

[No One]

kazetanade said:

No One this is probably a dumb idea, but what's your gut feel and rough maths for using Neophytes as a pseudo assault element for their cost as compared to spamming more Acolytes?

Apparently I'm not participating in my own thread *grumbles about forum layout*.

Anyway, on to the question - not good. But not as terrible as I thought. Absolute best case scenario (vs T3, no save, including shotguns), they just beat out acos point for point (1 extra wound). But basically as soon as you introduce an armour save, acos become noticeably better (even just guardsmen, 3 extra wounds). The closest realistic comparison would be against daemons, where acos win by only 0.2 wounds. While MEQ, the difference is more pronounced (acos almost double neo, 2 extra wounds). (NB: This is for 10 neos+banner, 60 pts, vs 6 acos with banner, 58 pts). So, passable assault threat against light infantry (though still non-marginally worse). Basically useless otherwise.

Note that the shotguns would also often result in longer charges as well. Without, they're very lackluster.

(This isn't getting into overwatch/I5+ strikes, which would swing things more in neos favour due to the lower impact of losing a model. But it'd still be in acos favour outside of extreme overwatch.)

Also demo charges on T1 but... probably pointless to get into that gimmick, what with a 30+% chance? Of blowing yourself up.

From memory, guestimate was more like 10-15% (though scatter dice is basically impossible to determine quantitatively). But when you add on the (probably) ~20-30% chance of missing outright, the fact that it's only doable once on T1, and likely only if you go first (since going 2nd opens you up to getting shot off the board, and they can just move 6" away to render it useless)? Yeah, bad gimmick.

Being useful would connotate coming in and having an impact, and while bubblewrapping is an impact of itself, its not enough of one to justify bringing the unit just for that.

Eh, I think bubblewrapping is totally worth it in and of itself. You just have to have something that benefits greatly from the wrap, and have the wrap be cheap enough that it doesn't detract from the rest of the list - something that's expensive and would likely melt/be tarpitted in cc otherwise (e.g. I took a squad of terms last game just to wrap my dakkafexes - semi-casual, but the theory was there for a reason, and it worked basically in both games) which cult...doesn't really have. Most things are disposable, and want to be in combat anyway - charging 2nd would be nice, but not necessary, and you can wrap with other disposables.

[kazetanade]

Eh... bubblewrap for bubblewraps sake means nothing. It's only useful against assault armies, as a cover save generation can be from miles ahead.

Sad for the Neophytes, feels like it goes back to the drawing board again. Maybe I should just take a few of those seismic cannons and try them out, otherwise can't find a good reason to have all that many Neophytes in the list.

[almostmercury]

I used to use it to give my shrouded MCs a better cover save.

/sadtrumpet

[gigasnail]

Acolytes do the same.

[Hive Bahamut]

I suggest trying some of these things before writing it all off. Math can't give experience. Number crunching won't win games. Statistically on a Wyvern I should have hit more than 1/16 including twin linked. That was not the case. Same with my Saws. 1 in 6 is much less than 50%.

I still rank them as one of the lower GSC units, but that's not hard as really Aberrants and maybe Rockgrinders are the only ones that are even more meh.

GSC is built around Cult Ambush. There are certain armies that almost render it irrelevant. Tau, for example is hilarious against GSC. The problem with just sending another squad is you can never guarantee the 6. Trying to out shoot anyone isn't a good idea, but cracking open transports, and whittling down dangerous units is good.

I will write up my report later using what I call "Supplemental Guard" list. I essentially just took all the Neophyte units, converted them to Veterans, kept around the same points and played it with Sub Up.

[kazetanade]

That works, but only cuz it's vets in a diff codec, I don't know what rules are going in there.

Sadly I think something has to at least look passable on paper before it can perform well on the table, so its not a matter of pure mathhammer but something yo outline its expected contribution. If this can hit at least the acceptable threshold, and they end up doing even more than that, hey ho and all below.

An example of this is the Abberrant - effectively they are the worst damage per point spent in the codex. Really what they excel and seemingly were designed to do, was to bodyguard big ICs in them. But at least on the average they are able to wreck a pod on the charge. If they couldn't even wreck the pod when keeping their ICs safe, then what's the point?

Also, while you have had bad experiences with the saw, I have had good ones. Like, sacrificing nearly 50 models to a Knight before my only saw left on table got in with it and wrecked 4HP in one go, thereby killing everything else in the resultant D-Blast but leaving nothing but a helturkey on table.

In the end you must understand that a unit of 10 Neophyte is NOT tying up anything scary for more than a turn, and if they can't even get a bit of stuff done by doing that, there's little merit in bringing them. Bubblewrap is not an inherent benefit in of itself, unless your strategy hinges on something else not getting tied up.

Getting back to Neophytes - maybe they can be utilized in a trapdoor spider manner where you wait for the enemy to come, rather than actively go seek them out. Setting them up in cover all over is pretty daunting to walk through for non power armor armies.