Mathammer on the two shooting relics?

[niiai]

Asuming you have the heavy venom cannon on a hive tyrant and you want to upgrade it with one of the two relica from blood of baal. Witch one do you use?

One gives a consistent 3 shots.

The second one gives you 1d3 shots, but lets you reroll one failed hit and one failed wound. On averadge, is not this one better?

Asume T7 or T8 with 3+ save.

[buzzbuzz]

Venonthorn - average 1.333 wounds per round of shooting on T 7/8

Pathogenesis - average 1.576 wounds per round of shooting on T 7/8

All before armour saves. If my math is correct.
I always choose venomthorn though because getting 1 shot always feels bad and against T4 I imagine three shots per turn is better

[No One]

Look at it this way: on average, venomthorn gets you 1 extra shot. Pathogenesis gives you 2 rerolls (and if you're in a position where you can't use rerolls, well, that's not exactly bad), and another bonus on top, and can also apply to a secondary weapon.

Venomthorn's just going to give you a more consistent top end (I have a feeling I've done a bit about distributions: poke me about this on the weekend, I'll have a fiddle when I have time).

[niiai]

The baseline for the Venomthorn is 3 shots always. On BS3 2 shots hit and you probably wound on both (3+.)

The Pathogenesis is very swingy because it shoots between 1 and 3 shots. On an 'averadge' roll on 2+ you will probably hot with 2 shots, but even if you miss on one you will likly hit on two shots. Or put othervice if you miss on one of the shots from the 3+ to hit, chances as you get 3 rolls to hit anyway. Then when it comes to wound you get a benefit as you have a re-roll left.

If you roll 3 shots you are better then venomthorn.

If you roll 1... how much worse are you then the venomthorn? Asuming 3+ to hit and 3+ to wound the re-roll on hit and wound seem like it should weight up for not having a garanteed 3 shots. The logic on this last might be wrong though.

Also, I wonder if the bell curve is much flatter on the venomthorn and the pathogenesis winns out on most averadge rolls, but how much worse is it the times you only get to shoot once?

Of course if you wound on 2+ the match changes a lot.

[kazetanade]

Neither. There are better relics to look at, or save the cp.

If you really want to, I think 3 shots is better. Your average is the same, but your potential upside is higher.

3 shots, 2 hits, 1.66 wounds

2 shots, 1.88 hits, 1.66 wounds(?)

There will be times when you roll 3 shots, which case the reroll is of course better, but there will be times where you roll 1 shot only too, and in games you generally want consistent performance over potential performance.

[vejby]

If you go with venom cannons, why not use the custom fleet trait that allows one failed hit roll to be rerolled in both the shooting and cc phase within 6" of synapse/psykers?


On a tyrant, that will be at least one, perhaps two CP not spent each turn and it will make the most of the consistent three shots on the relic cannon. A flyrant with MRC and the relic venom cannon could go a long way towards being useful with that particular trait freeing up CP - and the strat itself - for the important rerolls.

[niiai]

While that hive fleet trait is good in an MSU army with small units with bigs guns you are sacreficing a lot for that. The flying hive tyrant with melee weapons is usually better as an Kraken. Being alowed to leave combat to shoot anf charge again is just very powerfull.

[niiai]

May 14, 2020 5:19:07 GMT kazetanade said:

Neither. There are better relics to look at, or save the cp.

If you really want to, I think 3 shots is better. Your average is the same, but your potential upside is higher.

3 shots, 2 hits, 1.66 wounds

2 shots, 1.88 hits, 1.66 wounds(?)

There will be times when you roll 3 shots, which case the reroll is of course better, but there will be times where you roll 1 shot only too, and in games you generally want consistent performance over potential performance.

There are better relica to look at? You really need to be more spesific here. Tyranid relics where really bad before blood of baal.

Chameleonic Mutation was good. Kraken only though. Resonance barb is good. So unless you are talking about something else what you are saying is outside of kraken there is one other good relic.

CP for relics is a good way to get qualaty out of CP. The guns are worth it.

You need to back up your atatements with evidence.

[vejby]

May 14, 2020 7:28:04 GMT niiai said:

While that hive fleet trait is good in an MSU army with small units with bigs guns you are sacreficing a lot for that. The flying hive tyrant with melee weapons is usually better as an Kraken. Being alowed to leave combat to shoot anf charge again is just very powerfull.

It's a build that focuses solely on exploiting the trait maximally, yes. Basically, that is what all the traits in BoB do: force specialization and homogeneity to maximize usefulness. In a sense, the effect is incredibly fluffy as it forces each fleet into a distinctive evolutionary path that might make them a dead sabre tooth tiger or an incredibly stable well-adjusted predator on top of a food-chain, at least until the meta/environment changes.

I still hope to make a 1.000 points detachment with venom cannon fexes and walk-rants to exploit it maximally, with a secondary trait to assist them in either cc or boost speed. As AT goes for nids, the heavy venom cannon should be 'it' but the lack of rerolls and the variable number of shots ruins it. The trait together with spamming the weapon itself could mitigate that to some point and I still think it is worth exploring.

The secondary trait could well be prey sight. This would make crushing claws on 'fexes very decent even without OOE nearby, especially if the synapse can keep pace. Alternatively adrenal glands on the whole bunch with morphic sinews to allow them to constantly advance with no penalty to shooting.

The other detachment could then be kraken stealers for that early pressure, but I don't have all the fex'es to do it so it remains a dream… for now at least.

TL;DR I still think venom cannons paired with the custom trait is well worth exploring in  a proper context.

[niiai]

Venom cannon MSU might be worth it.

I have 2 carnifexes and 18 warriors with venom cannons. While OK, they have not been impressive. Carnifexes with 24 shots have proven more usefull as that is a very hard thing to find. But with the rerolls it might be worth testing venom cannons.

There is an inherit conflict here though. A lot of nids bread an butter is the shooting 2x stratgem. Only works on big groups, ideally 6 hive guards with 9 warriors in second place. But those 6 hiveguards benefits little of the reroll custom trait. To make things worse, those 6 hiveguards benefitt a lott from being kronos.

If you are going a shooting detachment you keep asking yourself if a kronos detachment is better.

[vejby]

May 14, 2020 7:53:18 GMT niiai said:

Venom cannon MSU might be worth it.

I have 2 carnifexes and 18 warriors with venom cannons. While OK, they have not been impressive. Carnifexes with 24 shots have proven more usefull as that is a very hard thing to find. But with the rerolls it might be worth testing venom cannons.

There is an inherit conflict here though. A lot of nids bread an butter is the shooting 2x stratgem. Only works on big groups, ideally 6 hive guards with 9 warriors in second place. But those 6 hiveguards benefits little of the reroll custom trait. To make things worse, those 6 hiveguards benefitt a lott from being kronos.

If you are going a shooting detachment you keep asking yourself if a kronos detachment is better.

Hive guard, in their popular impaler cannon variant suffer from immobility and middle range weaponry as well as an absolute vulnerability to being bad-touched. The HVC solves both former issues while the latter requires screening, which we all know can be horribly exploitable by the opponent. The platforms on which the HVC is available can all be tooled for dual-roles as both shooting and cc, solving the latter issue to some degree.

In addition, damage from the HVC is consistent on the shots that do get through and S9 is better in a T8 meta. That being said, a double-shot strat would come in handy and symbiostorm can do a lot for hive guard and the exocrine.

Why not just do both, though? A single Kronos detachment with two neurothropes for symbiostorm and backup, 3 ripper swarms, 2 lictors and a full unit of hive guard would complement the custom detachment very well and Kronos plays right into the immobility of the impaler cannon.

The warrior venom cannons actually work in both cases, in the latter custom detachment they just need to be MSU to maximize the reroll potential. 

[niiai]

The why not both argument depends upon the level of competiveness. We can not build the best gunline army in the game. That goes to IG, SM or Tau. If you build a gunline style army and meet a superior gunline army you are already loosing hard.

Instead you should focus on what makes nids good. While that is hard to identefy an army with many different roles and elements seems to be where it is at. Some combination of psykick powers, flying hive tyrants, hiveguards and genstealers seems to be a common ellement that makes nids unique from a gameplay perspective that we are good at.

[vejby]

May 14, 2020 8:38:38 GMT niiai said:

The why not both argument depends upon the level of competiveness. We can not build the best gunline army in the game. That goes to IG, SM or Tau. If you build a gunline style army and meet a superior gunline army you are already loosing hard.

Instead you should focus on what makes nids good. While that is hard to identefy an army with many different roles and elements seems to be where it is at. Some combination of psykick powers, flying hive tyrants, hiveguards and genstealers seems to be a common ellement that makes nids unique from a gameplay perspective that we are good at.

I wholeheartedly agree, but one hive fleet will not support all those elements at once, except in the most superficial way for the defensive ones. Thus, the need to build detachments for specific functions with specific models in them, while generating CP enough to keep each individual part running for as long as possible. Double shooting infantry as well as double moving swarm lord and double-fighting stealers all become very expensive to do for much more than 2 rounds. 

The level of competitiveness I usually meet will not allow the nid-player to cut any corners. Everything has to have a role and be supported as well as possible in that role.

[kazetanade]

May 14, 2020 7:44:44 GMT niiai said:

May 14, 2020 5:19:07 GMT kazetanade said:

Neither. There are better relics to look at, or save the cp.

If you really want to, I think 3 shots is better. Your average is the same, but your potential upside is higher.

3 shots, 2 hits, 1.66 wounds

2 shots, 1.88 hits, 1.66 wounds(?)

There will be times when you roll 3 shots, which case the reroll is of course better, but there will be times where you roll 1 shot only too, and in games you generally want consistent performance over potential performance.

There are better relica to look at? You really need to be more spesific here. Tyranid relics where really bad before blood of baal.

Chameleonic Mutation was good. Kraken only though. Resonance barb is good. So unless you are talking about something else what you are saying is outside of kraken there is one other good relic.

CP for relics is a good way to get qualaty out of CP. The guns are worth it.

You need to back up your atatements with evidence.

You are talking about free relic right? Resonance Barb is the catch-all generic that's A ranked to take, and is better than buffing up the Flyrants guns. Other than this, there's Chameleonic Mutation for Kraken, Parachute Gland for DSing Flyrants with a melee component, SoT for the behemoth SuperFlyrant. All of these relics vye for Free Relic slot, depending which is usable in your list.

Then the bought cp for 1cp, you'd have to contend with the ones above if you went Barb for free. The you also contend with our new Adaptation for the cost of 1cp, unless you felt you have more than enough to already (double batt does not have enough for frivolous buys).

The options the above relics/adaptations support all give you way more utility and impact than the HVC focused build does, so as a side relic there is no real point either. It would have to be a "I want to use HVC as a thing" before it's justifiable.

No Tyranid relic is worth the 3cp option for 2, so that's moot.

[kazetanade]

May 14, 2020 8:38:38 GMT niiai said:

The why not both argument depends upon the level of competiveness. We can not build the best gunline army in the game. That goes to IG, SM or Tau. If you build a gunline style army and meet a superior gunline army you are already loosing hard.

Instead you should focus on what makes nids good. While that is hard to identefy an army with many different roles and elements seems to be where it is at. Some combination of psykick powers, flying hive tyrants, hiveguards and genstealers seems to be a common ellement that makes nids unique from a gameplay perspective that we are good at.

Do you know what makes Nids good? You realize Nids are the pre-buff SM of the Xenos races - we do everything, but worse than everyone else.

We do horde worse than Orks, mobility and psychic worse than Elder, shooting worse than Tau, melee worse than Harlequins and GSC, mortal wounds worse than Necrons.

This is not too related to your point, more of a personal rant.

Related to your point though, is that while Nids do the toolbox role pretty well, we are quite cp starved to do it. Having a lot of tools is pointless if you don't have the resources to use them, and double batt is way too little to make use of them well. Balancing this is pretty key to any well functioning army.