Math on Neophytes?

[niiai]

How are Neophytes if you deck them out for anti infantry shooting?

I am not sure how the math on seismic cannon and flamer / grenade launcher is? Heck, I do not even know weather the grenade launcher of the flamer is better VS infantry. I assume the flamer.

But let's say you pop up 12 away. Guns blasing. Do you kill enough guardsmen or even SM?

[hivemind03]

A Neophyte with a Seismic Cannon shooting with its low strength profile is equivalent to 3 lasguns at rapid fire range; It costs 16 points. Three guys with lasguns costs 18 points. Not much is gained in point efficiency but if you are looking to pack as much into a squad as possible then, fine. Not much to talk about for horde clearing here. I think shotguns and flamers work out the best on pure efficiency, when you're not worrying about range.

Its high strength profile looks really good against marines but with 2 Seismic Cannons and 2 grenade launchers shooting Krak, you end up falling short of killing 2 marines (quick head math). Then easily gets sweeped up in return by the remaining 4 marines. That doesn't feel great for a 90 point unit.

In that scenario, pretty much all the damage is done by the cannons. So I would drop the Grenade Launchers and take shotguns, since the cannon's high str profile is only 12" range, and take flamers as they compare very favorably to shotguns in my head. With that you end up killing 2 marines, exactly.

For the same points, 10 Acolytes with either a banner or a special weapon do way better.. enough so to justify the risk of failing a charge, in my opinion. I know its not what you asked but I really think equipping neophytes like this is not playing to their strong suit. Neophytes are better off being cheap bodies and carrying anti tank weapons if anything.

And yeah, I'm only working with base profiles here because I'm just thinking it out and I dont know the shooting buffs of the cult very well. So I'll be interested to hear from others on that point

[kurtangle2]

Neophytes are 100% Mining Lasers carriers and nothing more, hoping for next codex to make the Webbers and Seismic viable as well