Trueborn in venoms with double splinter cannons

I must confess I'm not a huge fan of the changes to blasters and so started experimenting with alternative loadouts for my guys. Turns out trueborn with double splinter cannons is really good. For 180pts you get 27 poison shots at 18 inches. Is anyone else trying this I'm going to run 5 units of these at a local event this weekend.

I am going with 2x venoms loaded with 2 sc and 2 blaster an agnizor and blast pistol.

I have one squad with two splinter cannons. It's amazing!

I've got to say, I don't really get it.

Why not just a basic venom and an unupgraded squad of true born, or better yet kabalites.
A squad like this puts out a very similar amount of firepower (point for point) and yet allows for more bodies to be in the field.

Before I run through my numbers the points of my squad are 125, and it has 7 splinter rifles and one splinter cannon. Compared to the 180points of the splinter born on a venom. As such, to normalise for this I will multiply the damage output of the warrior venom by 180/135.

Splinter born then warriors in each example
0 - 12 inches - 30 | 28.5 shots
12-18 inches - 27 | 18.72 shots
18-24 inches - 15 | 14.4 shots
24-36 inches - 12 | 4.34 shots

Alright so maybe I do see it a bit more now if you are aiming to stay at long range or advancing a great deal. My big point was that for the points you can take an extra viper with squad and have some points to spare, but that to get equivalent shots you really have to put yourself in harms way.
Oh the problems with running the numbers on the fly...

So I was thinking about this some more, thinking that comsidering the price of splinter cannons there had to be another way. And I came up with this:
5 mandrakes on a venom unupgraded this comes to 175 and with a second splinter cannon it comes to 190.

This squad is harder to compare as toughness and armour starts to matter, but at least against marines up to 18 inches the mandrakes spit out more damage that the splinter born
Splinter born | mandrakes venom 1 sc | mandrakes venom 2 sc
0-12 inches - 3.33 | 3.89 | 4.11 kills
12-18 inches - 3 | 3.67 | 4.11 kills
18 - 24 inches - 1.67 | 0.88 | 1.33 kills
24 - 36 inches - 1.33 | 0.66 | 1.33 kills

I have to say I'm excited by that damage up to 18 inches away and additionally the weapons of the mandrakes are all assault meaning you can zoom to where you need to be and still fire. And if you get shot down you will be a harder unit to kill than the splinter born.
Additionally for 10 points you sacrifice very little at range.

4.11marines at 18 inches that is almost a whole 5 man squad, with a few of those wounds coming as mortals meaning that everything has to fear these reapers!

Might turn into a cool conversion idea for the venom.

Where are you getting the 4.11 dead Marines at 18" from?

I calculate 5 Mandrakes does 1.67 unsaved wounds against a Marine out of cover, which is exactly the same as 5 Trueborn with 2 Splinter Cannons.  The Venom is the same, so irrelevant.

Also this Trueborn squad costs 85 points, compared to the 95 point Mandrake squad.

Additional Mortal wounds on a 6?

(Haven't mat hammered it yet, just throwing it out there.

Now we have corsairs with free shardcarbins as well hmmm...

So 4 shardcarbins one splinter cannon is 30 shots and alot cheeper.....



Edit: they cannot ride in a venom so not viable!

Hellstrom, Ikol has it right, you haven't added in the additional mortal wounds yet., once you do you'll end up with my calculations. Although I definitely agree that the squad costs 10 points more, that is why on the other thread I included the damage without the second splinter cannon, as this is less than the points we are comparing to, yet the output is still often better.

Subsanity, corasirs? If they come with shard carbines I want me some of those! where are they from?

Corsairs? FW?

LordSplata wrote:

Hellstrom, Ikol has it right, you haven't added in the additional mortal wounds yet., once you do you'll end up with my calculations.  Although I definitely agree that the squad costs 10 points more, that is why on the other thread I included the damage without the second splinter cannon, as this is less than the points we are comparing to, yet the output is still often better.

Subsanity, corasirs? If they come with shard carbines I want me some of those! where are they from?

Go to news and rumors.FW xenos thread. Unfortunately I just figured out they cannot go in a venom. Sigh

colinsherlow wrote:

Corsairs? FW?

FW = forge world
Corsairs are there xenos troops for aeldari forces

Wait both the venom and corsairs have the aeldari keyword!

Subsanity wrote:

Wait both the venom and corsairs have the aeldari keyword!

That is true, you can field both in the same army. However, Venoms can only transport Drukhari Infantry and Incubi.

I also heavily encourage you to edit your posts in the future if you have anything to add to your posts. Double/Triple posts of the same user are frowned upon and lead to thread bloat.