Rock cutter - the cult savior in 9:th?

[wormlord666]

Ok, I know I am grasping for straws here, but hear me out:
I expect a lot of fat dudes (3-5 wounds) in heavy armour standing in the middle of the board. The new marinedudes, bikes, meganobz, bullgryns, custodes etc.
Instead of causing 2 wounds with the saw, we might slay them right out with the cutter. An msu approach in Pauper p might give usoppurtunities to throw in many small units and if with a primus and PP reroll this might work. Remember that we don’t need to wipe the unit, but reducing their ranks is important. (Pauper p fight in death trickery might come in handy)

I am not ready to start rebuilding my saws just yet, but mayby try it?

[hivemind03]

Leave your guys as rock saws. The cutters are certainly more playable but the saws are still the best all around.

I have 4 drills. I frequently put 1 in each acolyte squad just for the chance to add in a couple surprise mortal wounds and I've had it pay off big more than once but I don't think they average out to be worth the points. Aside from just being less efficient and less versatile, the drills slow down play, needing to be rolled separately and then adding even more rolls to the end. I think cutters are even worse in that regard, needing to roll each attack 1 at a time.

[kazetanade]

Each unit gets 4 tries, assuming true MSU. If there's an invulnerable, you have less than a 25% chance of proccing the roll, let alone the effect.

If cutters were cheaper, then might see play. As is, not sure, probably saws still better.

[gorsameth]

on average its a trade off between the chance to kill a model that is still alive or +1 to hit (more precisely, not having -1 to hit).
If 3+ wound models become more and more popular then I can see Cutters becoming worth it.

I don't see how invuls are important to the consideration, Saws suffer from them in the exact same way.

Against 2 wound models you have a 4.6% chance to not kill compared to a Saw. (1/18 to roll 1 damage and a 1 on the D6, and an extra 1/6 to miss)
Against 3 wounds a saw will always need 2 attacks to go through while a cutter has a 69.4% chance to kill on 1 failed saved.

With more and more Gravis marines showing up and eldar looking to bring Wraithblades for objective capping and Custodians looking to be popular, I wouldn't dismiss them.


(d3 damage
1/3 to do 3 wounds and strait up kill
1/3 to do 2 wounds, 1/6 to not kill = 1/18 chance to live
1/3 to do 1 wound, 2/6 to not kill = 2/18 chance to live
1/6 chance to live = 5/6 chance to die + extra 1/6 to miss).

[kazetanade]

gorsameth sorry I should clarify, the invul is just about the practical applications. Saws would face the same problem, and wouldn't be a good answer/alternative to cutters.

If cutters were priced 10pts like Saws I think they might see play but from memory they're still 20pts. We'd need 4 of them to get a reliable roll chance through a 4++, so you'd need quite a few of them. Or a single decent sized unit.

[sasel]

they now cost 10, like the saws

[wormlord666]

I am working on a list with 6 small units of acolytes. Mayby having 2 saws in 4 of them and then cutters in 2. That means I can choose where I put them. It will take some clever playing to get these units in to combat at all theese days so we´ll see,but the general idea is not to completelay delete saws, but exploring an alternative.

[gorsameth]

Jul 30, 2020 10:34:09 GMT kazetanade said:

gorsameth sorry I should clarify, the invul is just about the practical applications. Saws would face the same problem, and wouldn't be a good answer/alternative to cutters.

If cutters were priced 10pts like Saws I think they might see play but from memory they're still 20pts. We'd need 4 of them to get a reliable roll chance through a 4++, so you'd need quite a few of them. Or a single decent sized unit.

They are 10 so its a direct 1 for 1 comparison to Saws.
Drills are 15 points.

Jul 30, 2020 11:02:29 GMT wormlord666 said:

I am working on a list with 6 small units of acolytes. Mayby having 2 saws in 4 of them and then cutters in 2. That means I can choose where I put them. It will take some clever playing to get these units in to combat at all theese days so we´ll see,but the general idea is not to completelay delete saws, but exploring an alternative.

Yeah I'm trying out 4 units myself and having done the math now and seeing how good they actually are against 3W models I will certainly try out at least 1 squad with cutters when I get the chance.

[kazetanade]

Might try them out in a unit with 4 then and see how it goes. Thanks for the highlight.

[murderfiesta]

I've tried this out, ran 3x5 MSU squads riding in Rockgrinders (the Rockgrinders are hit-or-miss but help to provide some front-line deterrent to contest mid-board for an otherwise super squishy army).

The main problem with running MSU Rock Cutter squads is they really need a Primus nearby to help them get value, especially if the enemy has invulnerables. I think squads of 10 with 4 rock cutters is probably the way to go, squads of 5 with only 2 (and likely without Primus support) have too high of a chance of whiffing, whereas a squad of 10 starts bringing volume into the question. If you can get them there they're farrr better against a number of the core targets we'll be seeing (T4 or 5 and W2 or 3 with FNP) since the auto-kill functionality ignores FNP.