Tag Archives: 40k

28 November 2012

Dealing with Cron Air

By WarHamSandwich

Flyers in general, and necron flyers in particular, have really got many players worried and/or frustrated.

Nevertheless, a crucial weakness of pure flyer lists is the requirement to have units on the board at the end of every game turn. If the vast majority of the armies points are in flyers that can’t come in until turn 2, then killing the few ground units they have in turn 1 gets you an auto win before a single flyer enters play.

However, wiping even just a handful of units in turn one is not an easy task; especially so if your opponent is hiding them well. So far, some Daemons lists have excelled at this, since half the army deepstrikes in on turn 1 and can focus in on the enemy’s hiding spots.

What I’ve been pondering, is how an Imperial Guard army might achieve that difficult turn 1 wipeout. I think the key to this is captured in the quote:

Infantry win firefights. Tanks win battles. Artillery win wars.

The plethora of excellent artillery choices lets you drop devastating pie plates from afar, and even on units that you can’t see – thanks to indirect fire.

The inclusion of Gunnery Sergeant Harker lets you infiltrate a veteran squad, which can be placed with the right firepower to mop up the remains of a unit post-bombardment.

In case it doesn’t go to plan, I’ve included 3 vendettas to take on flyers that do make it in to play, and a Master of the Fleet to slow down the rate at which those flyers come into play.

So here’s the list:

HQ – 80
Company Command Squad (80)
Company Commander; Master of the Fleet.

Troops – 445
Veteran Squad (150)
Gunnery Sergeant Harker; 3× grenade launcher; Veteran Weapons Team (heavy bolter).

Platoon Command Squad (295)
Platoon Commander; Heavy Weapons Team (autocannon).
• Infantry Squad: +1 Sergeant.
• Infantry Squad: +1 Sergeant; krak grenades.
• Heavy Weapon Squad: 3× autocannon.
• Heavy Weapon Squad: 3× autocannon.

Fast Attack – 420
1 Vendetta Gunship (140)
sponson heavy bolters.

1 Vendetta Gunship (140)
sponson heavy bolters.

1 Vendetta Gunship (140)
sponson heavy bolters.

Heavy Support – 805
1 Ordnance Battery (420)
• Colossus
• Colossus
• Colossus

Manticore Rocket Launcher (160)

1 Ordnance Battery (225)
• Griffon
• Griffon
• Griffon

Detachment: Fortifications

Other – 100
Aegis Defence Lines (100)
Quad Gun.

1,850 points

As an added bonus, I think it will scare horde infantry lists; which are also gaining popularity in the tournament scene.

3 Comments   |  tags: , , , | posted in ETC, Tactics and Techniques, Tournament

3 November 2012

Krak vs Frag

By WarHamSandwich

One ‘fast call’ that often crops up is the decision of Krak vs Frag missiles when targeting MEQs. So here’s a question:

Devastator, Long Fang, Space Marines, Space Wolves

Lothar the Longfang stands atop a bastion with clear sight to a squad of chaos marines. He sees one in the open, with four comrades in cover. Should he use a krak on the one, or frag on the four? What if all 5 were in cover?

Chaos Marines

6th edition has introduced the concept of focus fire, whereby you can pick out individual models in the open, and has also reduced some of the standard sources of cover save (e.g. area terrain, and firing through enemy units). Both these changes affect the decision to go frag or krak vs armored targets.

Let’s take the simple stuff first, say Lothar fires a krak at the marine in the open – how does that pan out. With 3’s to hit, and 2’s to wound theres a 56% chance of killing the marine. What about the frag on the four? Well the scatter die is generally worse than all but the lowest BS values, so Lothar’s odds of hitting will likely drop (though this is quite dependent on the layout of the target models and any other nearby models that could be hit by a scatter). My previous analysis, puts BS4 scatter as about equivalent to BS3, so lets say 4+ to hit, 4+ to wound, and 3+ armor saves; and let’s say one blast marker can cover all four targets. This gets us an expected kill rate of less than 37% – worse than the krak. In fact, you’d need to cover about 7 marines before it was as effective as 1 krak shot (with no cover).

Of course, opponents are not always so obliging, and all your targets may be in cover. With 5+ cover that Krak missile drops to a 37% chance of a kill, and 4+ cover drops it to 28%. So how does the frag compare in these circumstances? A frag blast that covers 3 marines is roughly equivalent to 1 krak into 4+ cover. In 5+ cover you need about 5 marines covered to be worth your while.

So what’s the answer to our question? Well, with some dope in the open, Lothar should krak away rather than frag the four. But when it’s five in (say 5+) cover then it edges towards frag – but there’s something you should keep in mind:

They are roughly equivalent but there’s a key difference here – I’m using the ‘expected’ number of wounds to compare, but a krak can only kill 1 marine whereas the frag can kill multiple. The catch is: while the frag can kill more, your are also more likely to walk away with no kills at all. The concept here is volatility – if you need that one kill then the krak is more reliable even in situations where the average says they are equivalent. Sometimes though, you need to take the chance on getting multiple kills (e.g. to force a break test) and for that you need the frag.

1 Comment   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Probability

28 October 2012

Fast Calls

By WarHamSandwich

In the heat of battle you have to make all kinds of on the spot decisions. Sometimes these are judgment calls with no analytically right or wrong answer – you just go with what feels right. However, sometimes even very good players do this in situations where a bit of thought would lead them to a definitively right choice.

For example, during the 2012 ETC, my opponent and I were discussing a cover save for a squad of my chaos marines. I contended that they were in 4+ cover, he said no. After some debate he offered me to ‘4+ it’ to determine if they were in cover, to which I offered a flat 5+ cover save which he accepted. In a later game the same situation arose with a squad of Obliterators, this time I agreed to ‘4+ it’. So here’s a simple question for you:

Was I right to take a different approach to two seemingly identical situations?

In the case of marines, they needed cover to have any save at all, rolling a 4+ to see if they are in cover of 4+ needs two 4+s which is only 25% likely. Arguing for a 5+ got me a 33% survival chance. So heres a rule of thumb, if your opponent offers a 4+ on 4+, offer a flat 5+. If an opponent asks for a 5+ get him to 4+ it instead.

Then why the change for the Obliterators? Well, like all good rules of thumb, you need to know your exceptions. The key difference is that if the Obliterators aren’t in cover, they still have their 5+ invulnerable – arguing 5+ cover would achieve nothing. I should roll for the 4+ to try for 4+ cover and if I’m not in cover then I can still use the invulnerable.

There was a similar situation against Imperial Guard. The IG order “Fire on my target” forces you to reroll successful cover saves. A quick bit of math and I chose the 5+ invulnerable vs 4+ cover, for the same statistical reasoning as before – a 33% chance of survival vs a 25% chance.

Whenever you find yourself in these kinds of situation, take a moment to think about it – because eking out a few extra percentage points can win you a tight game, and aren’t those the best victories?

1 Comment   |  tags: , , , | posted in Probability

22 October 2012

Basic Anti Air

By WarHamSandwich

I realize that it’s been a while since I’ve thrown some numbers at you, and isn’t that really the purpose of this blog? So back on form, here’s a question:

Icarus was the boy of legend who flew too close to the sun, but if he traded his wax wings for a vendetta, then how worried should he be about the skyfire interceptor lascannon that they named after him?

20121022-205713.jpg

Flyers are the new hotness of 6th edition and everyone needs to have a way of dealing with them in order to stay competitive. The BRB gives us two generic options, the Icarus Lascannon, and the Quad Gun.

Both have the very interesting interceptor rule, which lets them take a pot shot at any enemy unit that has arrived from reserve that turn – so you get a chance to blow that flyer out of the sky at the end of his movement phase (before he gets a chance to fire).

Both fire at full BS vs. flyers (thanks to the skyfire rule), and given that flyers are usually medium armour at best, you’d be hopeful of getting a lucky shot in to pop your opponent’s beloved flying machine of death. Unfortunately the numbers aren’t really on your side…

So that Vendetta flies onto the board full of hopes, dreams, and heavy weapons, how does he fare? Let’s take the Icarus Lascannon first.

20121022-205839.jpg

Assuming BS4, with fours to pen his AV12, and fives on the damage chart to explode him we get an 11% chance of success (which drops to 7% if your opponent evades). The hull point view isn’t great either, we can do at most 1 hull point, but the expected value is 0.3 hull points.

20121022-205957.jpg

The quad gun is certainly a better bet for doing hull point damage (not so hot for an explodes result). We can potentially do 4 Hull points of damage to that Vendetta! But what are the odds?

Hull Points inflicted vs Odds
0 41%
1 41%
2 15%
3 2%
4 <1%

As you can see, not great. The expected value is 0.79 Hull Points, which is a lot better than the Icarus, but still not a major threat.

Running a few more numbers, I came across a sad truth. A snap firing twin linked tesla destructor (i.e without skyfire) is as dangerous to a vendetta as the dedicated AA Quad Gun.

So to answer my original question, our vendetta pilot shouldn’t sweat it, but my overall conclusion can be summed up as:

God damn necrons.

1 Comment   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Probability

22 October 2012

Ireland ETC 2013 part 01

By WarHamSandwich

I’ve recently been given the honour of becoming the 2013 captain for Ireland’s 40k team for the ETC. With the outgoing captain, Mike Tangney, having overseen Ireland’s best performance to date, I’ll have some big shoes to fill.

Thankfully I have a pool of excellent players to build the team, and have a small army of volunteers to help with the organisation.

Today’s post is just a snapshot of where the current rankings lie, as these will be a key component of team selection. Heres the latest rankings top 20:

40K (IRE)
Paul Quigley
Dan Ahern
Alec Cornelius
John Stowe
Jonny Fisher
Richard Flood
Ivan Sheehan
Scott Nelson
Eoin O’Mahony
Jan Karnowski
Michael Tangney
Mervyn Murphy
Philip Johnston
Dave Coleman
Peter Scott
Rowan Sheridan
Luke Osbourne
Tom O’Reilly
Brian Leonard
Javier Jimenez

As you can see we’ve got a good mix of former ETC vets and new blood vying for the top slots. Obviously it’s early days yet, and I expect to see lots of changes over the next 5 months, but I’ll post regular updates of the rankings scene and keep track of how people are progressing over the rest of the season.

Leave a comment   |  tags: , | posted in ETC

3 October 2012

IG and me

By WarHamSandwich

I played my first 6th ed tournament, using a combo of chaos marines and imperial guard. The format was escalation from 1000 to 2000 over 5 games with a 250 point uplift from round to round.

I brought a list that tried to include a bit of everything: flyers, deep strikers, flying monster, jump infantry, artillery, fortification etc.

Overall they were decent but definitely suboptimal lists, so I won’t bore you with the breakdown – but I did take the time to reflect on my games and come up with a list that is more evolved.

So 1750 points will get you:
Imperial Guard

HQ
Company Command Squad
Company Commander; Astropath; Master of Ordnance; Master of the Fleet; camo cloaks.

Elites
Guardsman Marbo

Troops
Platoon Command Squad
Platoon Commander.
• Infantry Squad: +1 Sergeant (melta bombs); flamer; krak grenades; Heavy Weapons Team (heavy bolter).
• Infantry Squad: +1 Sergeant (melta bombs); flamer; krak grenades; Heavy Weapons Team (heavy bolter).
• Heavy Weapon Squad: 3× autocannon.

Platoon Command Squad
Platoon Commander.
• Infantry Squad: +1 Sergeant (melta bombs); sniper rifle; krak grenades; Heavy Weapons Team (missile launcher).
• Infantry Squad: +1 Sergeant (melta bombs); sniper rifle; krak grenades; Heavy Weapons Team (missile launcher).
• Special Weapon Squad: 3× demolition charge.

Fast Attack
1 Vendetta Gunship
sponson heavy bolters.

1 Vendetta Gunship
sponson heavy bolters.

1 Vendetta Gunship

Heavy Support
2 Hydra Flak Tanks

Manticore Rocket Launcher
pintle-mounted heavy stubber; camo netting.

2 Hydra Flak Tanks

Fortifications
Aegis Defence Lines
Quad Gun.

Since chaos is in flux right now I’ve left them out of the list That said, with the new chaos codex coming out this week you can expect to see more from me on the IG+CSM combo in the near future.

2 Comments   |  tags: , , | posted in Tactics and Techniques

29 January 2012

Warpcon

By WarHamSandwich

This weekend saw one of Ireland’s biggest 40k tournaments run in Cork. It was my first time attending Warpcon, and coincidentally my first time competing at the new 1850 limit.  Strangely enough, I noticed that Cork airport has a very 40k appropriate three letter IATA Code:

As I mentioned previously I’ve done some head scratching as to how best to bump my 1750 list up to 1850. This time I went with a multimelta armed chaos dreadnought.   So my final list was as follows:

HQ1: Daemon Prince Mark of Slaanesh Wings Lash of Submission [155 Pts]
Elite1: 3 terminators 3x Combi-melta [105 Pts] in Transport 1
Elite2: 3 terminators 3x Combi-plasma [105 Pts] in Transport 2
Elite3: 1 Chaos Dreadnought, with Multimelta [100]
Troop1: 5 chaos marines  [75 Pts]
Troop2: 5 chaos marines  [75 Pts]
Troop3: 5 chaos marines, Icon of Chaos Glory [85 Pts] in Transport 3
Heavy1: 3 Obliterators [225 Pts]
Heavy2: 3 Obliterators [225 Pts]
Heavy3: 3 Obliterators [225 Pts]
Transport1 : Landraider [220 Pts] Carries Elite1
Transport2 : Landraider [220 Pts] Carries Elite2
Transport3 : Rhino [35 Pts] Carries Troop3
[1850pts]

ROUND 1

MISSION Primary Seize Ground, Secondary Capture and Control, Pitched Battle Deployment

My first game was against Mark and his Dark Eldar army.

Mark had a really interesting mixed dark eldar force – Wyches, Raiders, Beasts, Talos, Venom, Ravager, Warriors, Wracks, Hellions, Incubi and more.  A good set of turn two deepstrikes let me do some serious damage to his force, but we were pretty evenly matched until turn 5.  In one turn I managed to contest the two primary objectives he had been holding, and flush him off his home objective while holding one of the primaries and my home.  The very end of the game was pretty epic: it’s looking like a 14-6 to me, after movement I’m about 6″ away from the objective that he’s holding – I roll for a run with the one squad in range, the six comes up and the 14-6 becomes 18-2.  Game ends

RESULT 18-2 WIN

ROUND 2

MISSION Primary Capture and Control, Secondary KillPoints, Spearhead Deployment

Next up was against Dave and his Blood Angels army.

Blood Angels are a fast and dangerous army.  Dave had Death Company, Astaroth and a Libby Dread in a Raven; Assault Terminators in a Redeemer, a Speeder, and two squads (one in a pod, and one in a Rhino).

I had first turn, and set up my Raider and Oblits with good fire lanes across the whole table.  I was able to shoot up all his transports while they were still far away, thus giving me the opportunity to use my firepower against him for the whole game and avoid getting into assaults.  Without mobility, Dave had a tough time of it, but was a great opponent.  The game went the full 7 turns, and I held my objective, had managed to sneak a rhino onto his, and was comfortably ahead on KPs.

RESULT 19-1 WIN

ROUND 3

MISSION Primary KillPoints, Secondary Capture and Control, Dawn of War Deployment

Last game of the day was against Rowan and his Clockwork Necron army.

This was my first game against the new Necrons, and Rowan had heeded my advice and had brought plenty of Tesla.  He had also taken lots of tricksy stuff – so I faced THREE turns of nightfighting, and thanks to Anrakyr the Traveller my own Landraider started shooting my Oblits.  But the really dangerous bit of the list was the wraiths.  They were jumppacking, rending, 2 wound, stormshield carrying death machines.

I killed most of Rowans skimmers but just bounced off those wraiths.  Rowan played really well, and I learned a lot about the sneaky tricks of the new codex. I must say necrons are really interesting, and I’m going to have to do some heavy thinking on how I can best take them on…

Ended the day on a loss – needed to get back into the fight in the morning!

RESULT 5-15 LOSS

ROUND 4

MISSION Primary Seize Ground, Secondary KillPoints, Spearhead Deployment

My first game was against Burkhardt and his incredibly painted Blood Angels army.

Burkhardt had first turn, and deployed his whole army (bar his sanguinary guard and honour guard) on the left flank.  As with all BA opponents, I needed to keep him away and get some solid shooting in before any of his units reached my lines.  So I deployed a refuse flank, with just my 2 landraiders and one squad of obliterators in the far right corner.  Off to a good start.

Turn 1 his two lascannons manage to immobilise and stun one raider, and I have to go to ground for my oblit squad to weather the hail of bloodstrike missiles.  So turn one I have just one raider to shoot back with, and he fails to scratch the raven.

Turn 2 his honour guard (with melta guns), and sang guard (with inferno pistols) DoA next to the undamaged raider, but not close enough for 2d6 pen.  Not that that mattered since he glanced it and rolled a 6, with the AP1 bumping that up to Destroyed Wrecked.  😦 My turn 2 my melta terminators roll a 10 for scatter and mishap (these things happen).  My oblits drop down with clear LOS to his honour guard, and roll an 11 for scatter putting them 0.5 inches off the table. 😦   On the plus side my remaining 6 oblits down his raven which had boosted towards my lines.  In a true combined arms fashion, my plasma terminators did manage to mess up the terminators that popped out of the raven, but didn’t manage to finish off the unit.  Unfortunately his blood talon dread was eyeing them up with glee…

Turn 3 his sang guard assault my oblits, whittling them down.  His honour guard just hang about having fluffed their difficult terrain.  His lasback and autolas pred popped the remaining oblit squad – three shots, three kills.  😦   As expected, the blood talon dread devoured the terminators.  My turn 3,  I move up my marines towards objectives, and make a really stupid mistake: I forgot to shoot with my immobilised Land Raider.   The daemon prince takes on the honour guard (and fails to kill anything!).  😦   The chaos dread rushes in and assaults the sang guard but does no damage, but he’ll grind them down – right?

Turn 4 he blows up my last Land Raider with his autolas pred, and his two razorbacks take up objective holding positions.  His Blood Talon Dread jumps into the Daemon Prince combat, but luckily I chop him down before he gets a chance to strike and   My turn 4  my Dread finishes off the last Sang Guard but the sang guard have popped the last oblit.

Turn 5 he bolts forward with his death company towards my right flank objective.  He holds two, I hold one, and the right flank is contested.  My turn 5 the dread lumbers towards the death company, but with only a two for difficult terrain meant I wasn’t able to close the gap.  So I piled him in to the daemon prince/honour guard fight and wiped his squad.  Now I need another turn to claw back that draw! Game ends

😦

RESULT 3-17 LOSS

ROUND 5

MISSION Primary KillPoints, Secondary Seize Ground, Pitched Battle Deployment

My last game was against Loyd and his Dark Angel army.

Loyd’s army was exactly the mix of light mech and walking marines that my list excels against, and after my harrowing loss in the last round I was looking for blood.  I seize the initiative, and do some damage to his tanks.  Lash + plasma terminators + oblits whittle down his assault squad and Belial’s squad.  Meltacides kill his dreadnought and mop up two of his scoring units in assault.  Land raiders tear up his vehicles.  By turn 5 he has two models left – one more turn needed to get the 20-0!  But game ends

RESULT 18-2 WIN

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Tournament

15 January 2012

Vindication for the Vindicare

By WarHamSandwich

A long long time ago, a gentleman called ‘JohnnyCache’ asked:

“I would like to see a breakdown of my likelihood of stopping a vehicle with the 4d6 turbo-penetrator round from the vindicare covered in your excellent mathblog, because I am looking at it and it looks like (assuming he hits the vehicle) he will glance-or-better armor value 10 9 time out of ten? And glance-or-better av 14 over half the time?”

I sent him a quick response without writing an article, and didn’t think anymore about it until today, where I realised that I had completely misinterpreted the vindicare’s tank killing capability.  So firstly apologies to JohnnyCache, but better late than never, right?

I’ll frame the discussion with one of my more traditional questions:

How many marines with lascannons would you need to equal the Land Raider killing potential of one vindicare turbo penetrator shot?

The Vindicare has long been one of my favourite models both in terms of looks and rules.  What a badass.  In the current ruleset the Vindicare is BS8, and has a special ammo type called ‘Turbo Penetrator’ that has 4d6 for armour penetration.  When I responded to JohnnyCache, I basically provided the following:

Which basically proved his maths correct, 55% chance of glancing or better on AV14, 90% chance of glance or better on AV10 (assuming you hit).  But it was only today that a few additional details popped into my head.  Number 1, his weapons are marked as ‘Sniper‘, so they get a Strength of 3 to add to that 4d6, giving us the following:

The AV14 penetration result rockets up to over 75%!  But wait, there’s more: ‘Sniper’ weapons are also rending, so any roll of a 6 on penetration gets an additional d3 to penetration – combined with the Str 3 bump we get the following:

As you can see these combine to form a major boost to the previously predicted tank busting power.

Looking back to my setup question, the Vindicare is BS8 (approx 91% chance to hit), penetrates AV14 79% of the time, and the weapon is AP1 so it adds +1 to the damage roll.  End-to-end odds of killing a Land Raider? approx 37%

How many devastators with lascannons does that equate to? Well with BS4, S9, and AP2 you would need 12 lascannon-toting marines to get the same odds of a kill.

In my opinion, for 145 points, he’s a steal.

5 Comments   |  tags: , , , | posted in Probability

8 January 2012

A tussle with Tesla

By WarHamSandwich

The recent reboot of necrons has injected some new ideas into the 40k meta, and players are trying out various combos and builds from the new codex. The new rules introduce some new mechanics, and regular reader Rowan Sheridan has asked for some insight into Tesla weapons.

Let’s kick things off with a question (actually TWO questions):

A nasty necron immortal is firing his Tesla Carbine at a horde of terrifying Tyranids. As he aims, he gets blasted by Paroxysm making him BS1, how does this affect his odds of getting the bonus Tesla hits?
What if his carbine was twin linked due to the Targeting Relay of a Triarch Stalker?


A Tesla weapon gets you three hits on a to hit roll of a six, and so we can quickly get an answer for the first element of our discussion. The BS of the firer of a Tesla Carbine is irrelevant for the purposes of the bonus hits, you always have a one in six (16.67%) chance of rolling a six. Obviously with higher BS you’ll miss less and will therefore always come out better on average in terms of regular hits (just not in terms of bonus hits).

So first portion of the discussion done, bonus hits are a straight 6 on a dice roll, so your BS is irrelevant and your odds are 16.67%. But, what about the second part of the question – Twin Linked Tesla? This is where it gets interesting…

The twin linked rule only allows you to reroll misses, and low BS means more misses, and therefore you are more likely to get a second chance at rolling a 6. The unmolested necron has a BS of 4, has a 16.67% chance of getting a six first time, and a 33% chance of getting a reroll (i.e. missing the first shot). The necron suffering from Paroxysm has a 16.67% chance of getting a six first time, and an 83.33% chance of getting a reroll (i.e. missing the first shot). Lets take a closer look at those odds:

  • BS4 chances of getting bonus hits: 16.67%
  • BS1 chances of getting bonus hits:16.67%
  • BS4 Twin Linked chances of getting bonus hits: 22.22%
  • BS1 Twin Linked chances of getting bonus hits: 30.56%

That’s right, a paroxysm affected necron has a significantly improved chance of getting Tesla bonus hits when his weapon is twin linked. In fact the odds smoothly reduce as BS goes up (for twin linked weapons):

  • BS1: 30.56%
  • BS2: 27.78%
  • BS3: 25%
  • BS4: 22.22%
  • BS5: 19.44%

Now as interesting as this may be, we can’t ignore the fact that at BS1 he’s simply going to miss more often – is the additional probability of the Tesla bonus good enough to mitigate his lousy aim? How about a graph of the total number of hits (regular + bonus) we would expect (on average) per hit roll made?

The graph shows the expected number of hits for BS values from 1 to 5 for a ‘Basic’ (i.e. non Twin Linked, non Tesla) weapon, a Tesla weapon, and a Twin Linked (TL) Tesla weapon.

As you can see for increasing BS you expect more hits, so the Tesla game mechanic hasn’t done anything too strange. In non twin linked Tesla the bonus improves all BS equally, and for twin linked it improves weak BS more noticeably.

If GW had set the Tesla bonus hits at higher level then you really would start to get strange effects. Non-twin linked Tesla would almost negate any difference between BS values, and for Twin linked Tesla low BS could be for better than high! Thankfully that’s not the case.

That’s all a bit theoretical, but Rowan’s actual question was more specific to the Tesla Destructor, which is four twin linked shots of tesla.

Because of the Tesla effect, these 4 shots can get from 0 to 12 hits, but the odds are very much unlike any other 40k mechanic. To show what I’m talking about, here’s a graph of the results of 4 Tesla shots at BS4, Twin Linked and Non-Twin Linked:

If you recall my article on 2d6 we saw a spike on the 7 result because the largest number of possible combinations added up to 7. We see a similar but more complex action here where certain results peak as there are more ways for that exact number of hits to occur (as an interesting quirk, it’s impossible for the 4 shots to produce a result of 11 hits). The key difference between the TL and non TL results is that TL gets better odds of the bonus hits and so the combinations that need those ‘3s’ get amplified (and the improved hit rate that makes TL generally useful also shifts the curve to the right).

Interesting graph, but how about I boil it down to a straight comparison?

  • 4 Tesla shots at BS4 gets an average of 4 hits
  • 4 Twin linked Tesla shots at BS4 gets an average of 5.33 hits

And if you think that’s good – I haven’t included Arcing in this analysis!

2 Comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Probability

7 September 2011

Hydra Dominatus

By WarHamSandwich

As I mentioned previously, I’m building a renegade Imperial Guard army themed on Alpha Legion Operatives. The infantry I’m using are the awesome forgeworld renegade guard, but there was a question of how to represent the vehicles.  The army list I have in mind uses Hydras, Vendettas, and Chimeras but I wanted a look and feel distinct from regular guard.

For the chimeras I’m happy enough with just using chaos upgrade sprues to get the renegade look, but the hydras and vendettas would be a bit tougher.  After scouring Ebay for a couple of evenings I found a bitz seller who had listed 6 defiler turrets, and there was my answer – with some autocannons, a defiler turret could turn a chimera into a suitably renegade hydra.  The first is now assembled, see below:

For the vendettas I searched around online for inspiration, but spent a week looking without finding anything.  Then I happened upon this:

Again Ebay to the rescue, I found a supplier in the US and picked up 3 of them.

So with the models sorted, the next question was what colour scheme.  Blue, green and silver are the dominant colours of my Alpha Legion marine army, and I wanted the operatives to be different but still blend reasonably well together.  Since the Alpha Legion are stealthy sneaky types, I decided to run with a blue green camouflage scheme for the vehicles.  The test models are below.

Obviously I’ve still along way to go before completing the army, and I’ll post further updates as I make more progress.

2 Comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Hobby

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