No One's Maths Thread (Mostly GSC)

[kazetanade]

OK so a few more considerations:

How do TH Abbys with Picks n Sign, buff with Might + Primus + S Icon, fare against the stock Acos/Saws with Might + Primus + Draw Blood (S Icon being irrelevant)?

My thoughts so far is that Abbys aren't good unless they have Might, which means they compete directly with the 10 man 4 saws drop, and even the 20 man 8 saws drop (which is overkill as heck, or not enough to total the Knight). They don't get a big a jump from a +1S, but they get a huge jump from a +3S whereas Acos don't. That's also reroll 1s to wound.

[No One]

kazetanade said:

How do TH Abbys with Picks n Sign, buff with Might + Primus + S Icon, fare against the stock Acos/Saws with Might + Primus + Draw Blood (S Icon being irrelevant)?

Assuming into a knight...badly. Acos with saws get 56 wounds vs aberrants 31. Even stock acos are almost there at 28. Draw blood is good, and saws get more from the extra might attacks (or at least, 1 extra attack with a saw does more than an extra attack with the pick: yes, I'm including RC as well).

Reroll 1s to wound helps a bit, but not by much, bumping them up to 36 wounds.

[kazetanade]

So from the looks of it, Abbys don't do much better in particular, and having big groups of 20 Acolytes will basically settle almost any situation other than multiple charges into T7/T8 at the same time. Having the 8 saws looks good but is basically not needed with Might and Primus, and is not enough without Might and Primus (but might be enough with Primus, TH, and Draw Blood I wager), meaning that bringing a max squad with like 2-3 Saws will meet more than enough of your needs.

I also assume whatever negatively affects Acolytes output via Invuls will also screw Abberants up, and that every wound lost in a Acolyte squad is still worth less than an Abby wound, meaning you have better resilience with the Aco list mass than a supported Abby list.

[No One]

kazetanade said:

So from the looks of it, Abbys don't do much better in particular, and having big groups of 20 Acolytes will basically settle almost any situation other than multiple charges into T7/T8 at the same time. Having the 8 saws looks good but is basically not needed with Might and Primus, and is not enough without Might and Primus (but might be enough with Primus, TH, and Draw Blood I wager), meaning that bringing a max squad with like 2-3 Saws will meet more than enough of your needs.

To kill a knight outright, you basically need saws: primus+might+draw blood only gives you 27.7 wounds. Now, whether you want the full saws (kills a knight with 2 buffs, so can operate solo with TH and draw blood), or just, say, 2 (might+primus+draw blood for 35, might+draw blood for 28). Well, that's another thing.

and having big groups of 20 Acolytes will basically settle almost any situation other than multiple charges into T7/T8 at the same time.

Since so much damage is weighted on the saws (~half the unit), you could actually kill multiple T7 (or 8 with strength buffs) e.g. ~30 wounds with might+draw blood with just the saws. Now, how you'd position to do this/do it through overwatch, well...doable but unreliable.

I also assume whatever negatively affects Acolytes output via Invuls will also screw Abberants up

Not really: they don't like invuls, but aren't as badly affected as saws. Basically, saws are -3 (and get more -4 with draw blood), picks/signs are -2/-1 respectively. So for example, into T8 3+ 4++ with full buffs as previous:
Saws are 30, aberrants are 26. Down from 55 and 31. So if invuls are the concern, pick aberrants are probably better than saws. Can handle a wide variety of defensive profiles decently, but rarely shine compared to alternatives.

[niiai]

No One, you probably have an XL sheet somewhere with this.

A long time agi somebody did the mathhammer of point to wound ratio for heavy weapons. Do we stil have a new one after chapter aproved?

If I remember corectly the list went:
1 hive guards with shock
2 hive guard with impaler cannon
3 the plasma gunbeast
4 rupture cannon beast
5 carnifex with heavy venom cannon

Has some an updated list? Also, do all of them outperform the GSC leman russ?

[kazetanade]

No One, thoughts on a 10 man Demo charge Rusted Claw using the full combo, vs the 20 man Flamerco or 15/5 Democo, assuming only strategem use and no Alpha support? Is it worth looking at in a practical game?

[No One]

Thought I'd do some maths with new MO. Corrected the maths for the normal roll off initial wound, and it's OK once you account for cast odds.
Basically, the average is approximately 3/2/1/1 for 5/6/7/8 ld from base 10 without crouchling.
Goes up to 4/3/2/1/1 with crouchling/CP reroll. Numbers aren't actually that clean, but you get the idea.

Also, the odds of high rolling for high ld is actually...surprisingly good. Like, ~25% chance of ~7 wounds for ld 5/6. Ld buffs still seem like they make a large difference to the usefulness of the power, just without such a large reliable pay off. But while they don't improve your average much, they do make a larger difference on the more extreme odds (an extra ~2-3 wounds from '7' to '6' at 10%), which is interesting.

But take away, it's a targeted (usually) better smite with a small chance to do a decent amount of damage: if you need reliable serious damage, don't bother. If a handful of extra wounds to (basically) whatever you want is useful, it's still good and ld WL trait might be worth considering.

[No One]

Have been thinking about how to handle Iron Hands (and more generally marines): the dread/infantry builds seem "fine", just need to make the charges/hostages count etc. But repulsors/infiltrators? The charge debuffs on those make things very awkward: in particular, repulsors with 4+/CM overwatch are almost impossible to charge without shutting overwatch down. Hyp is a probably, but have been thinking about amulet patty a bit: needs PA to make a charge, but is reasonably tanky and will contribute damage as well, while potentially being more reliable than hyp. Also can shut down multiple units with familiar (if close), or with hyp, meaning it's not just bad trades if you commit hard on multiple repulsors.

Theorycrafting aside, made me curious about what PA odds actually are. Investigating a couple of scenarios (charge distance is 'before' PA):

Scenario 1: 10" charge (Patty+clamavus vs repulsor, FAE+clamavus vs infiltrator), CP reroll charge

Scenario 2: 10" charge (broodcoven acolytes vs infiltrators), 'perfect' charge reroll

Scenario 3: 8" charge (Patty/TH etc+clamavus or FAE solo vs anything), CP reroll charge

And also looking at CP rerolls on PA. No reroll, reroll 1 and 2, reroll 1-3.

Notes on rerolls: the maths for the charge rerolls isn't 100% accurate (I just gave up on getting it to properly add up), but should be close enough that it won't change rounded numbers. CP reroll usually only if a 4+ makes: rerolling any time you could make will of course increase the numbers. Not 100% sure to what, but should be ~1-3% on Scenario 1 depending on how risky you are with that/which PA reroll it is etc.

As the inverse to the above, the acolyte charge still uses CP where better, even if it's only very marginally better than full rerolls: don't expect that would make a large impact though, since if it's a non-marginal increase, you should be using CP instead.

	No Reroll	RR 1 and 2	RR 1-3
Scenario 1	75%	83%	84%
Scenario 2	84%	90%	90%
Scenario 3	92%	97%	96%

So, take aways: PA is fairly reliably able to get charges even on difficult targets, as long as you've got CP for PA and charge rerolls, though this is less needed for fully buffed acolytes. Just don't reroll PA 3s, can make things worse .

[kazetanade]

75% for a 10" charge? Really?

[gorsameth]

its basically a 3d6 charge (PA+Charge itself) with re-rolling 1 dice from the charge.
75% sounds possible.

[kazetanade]

Ah okay, so it's with PA included. I misunderstood his scenarios - I thought PA was included in the scenario's 10".

[wormlord666]

I have had some thoughts of a sanctus with amulett to shut down overwatch. A fighty sanctus can help killing the buffdudes aswell. Thats a way to save CP. But I haven’t tried. And I’m unsure about hus output in the fight.

[No One]

wormlord666 said:

I have had some thoughts of a sanctus with amulett to shut down overwatch. A fighty sanctus can help killing the buffdudes aswell. Thats a way to save CP. But I haven’t tried. And I’m unsure about hus output in the fight.

I don't like it. He's not great in a fight (kills <2 primaris, or <4 wounds to a single model. Unless it's a vehicle, in which case basically nothing), bad defensively (T3 4+ vs T5 3+/4++ with more wounds, familiar and potential defensive WL trait). Familiar gives good utility, allowing you to charge more than 1 unit, especially with patty's bigger base.

And patty's a unit you take anyway: sanctus with dagger isn't. Just chuck amulet on in the few match ups where it matters (Tau, some SM builds, probably some others as well), PA for charge, and it's still a strong unit for the rest of your army. Also better on subsequent turns for damage/overwatch negation with the better combat and movement.

[kazetanade]

No One have you looked at the new Iron Hands stuff and do you think it impacts us in a great way? I did some mental math yesterday and came out with "Nothing Hurts an IH dreadnought wing enough to hurt it, other than a 6+saws unit with Might and Draw". Not sure if we need to kill it, but my list doesn't do attrition well and the Leviathan hurts like mad.

[No One]

kazetanade said:

No One have you looked at the new Iron Hands stuff and do you think it impacts us in a great way? I did some mental math yesterday and came out with "Nothing Hurts an IH dreadnought wing enough to hurt it, other than a 6+saws unit with Might and Draw". Not sure if we need to kill it, but my list doesn't do attrition well and the Leviathan hurts like mad.

(Unless stated otherwise, assuming 2 out of combat for daisy chain, and primus+strength buff, vs iron father+ironstone)
Yeah, I don't think there's much we can do to kill leviathans: even 20 man, 6 saws, primus (inc. meticulous)+draw+might doesn't kill it at 15.6 wounds, assuming I'm remembering defensive profile right (T8 2+/4++, 16 wounds). But a leviathan you can just hostage/chain touches. An executioner (or weaker dreads: maths is the same for anything with a 3+) is easier to kill: still difficult, but the aforementioned unit gets ~15 wounds even if might doesn't go off, as long as you have a different strength buff. Which does leave you in a bit of an awkward spot, re repairs though. From my PoV, 20 man stock with might+draw does 15.8 (so on average, kill with pistols), 20 /w 3 saws does a comfortable 17.2 with might+draw, though meticulous+might/draw doesn't do near enough at ~13-14 wounds. Of course, the plan is more to charge with more than 1 squad, which should push me over, as long as I've got other buffs sprinkled about as well.