Shredders

Shredders would have probably been fine... if wyches could take them (in addition to wyche weapons, of course).

Thor665 wrote:

However, the big issue is this;
Shredders kill infantry and, with Shred, are good at killing infantry with high toughness and low armor saves.
So do splinter weapons.
Y'know, those weapons that *everyone* in our army basically has?
The ones we can spam on accident?
So, basically our entire army is pretty good at the job of Shredders.

Nailed it.

If they were template weapons then they could fill a slightly different role, in terms of adding ignore cover, BBQ 6 dudes at once and overwatch support to a standard Kabalite squad. But they're not, and they don't.

I might try a squad of Shredderborn or even Scourge shredders Deep Striking for kicks, but I'm also going to try Hellions. I'm expecting comparable effectiveness.

I plan to use them against Necron Scarab swarms. S6 will ID them, and they don't have much armor iirc. If I'm lucky I can hit 2+ swarms in one shot.

I used a Shredder yesterday in a 20 kabalite warriors squad deep striking with an wwp archon. First thing it does is scattering back at me killing 7 warriors and almost ID-ing my warlord. Well...

I try to maintain the max 2' coherency but i always get the evil eye from my opponent when I do.

I've been hit by my own Shredder more than once as well. Since Blasters don't actively try to kill me, my Shredder is now a Blaster.My Kabalites will just have to deal with not getting the hit of pain from watching their squadmates get mulched.

Blast weapons in general tend to be bad for armies with good BS.
"Hit" is 1/3 (so basically a 5+) reducing to 0 scatter is 4 out of 11 so roughly 36 %

The lower your BS, the better blast becomes as it moves closer to your true "to hit" and still gives you a chance of a good scatter.

Shooting a blast with a BS1 Model would actualy improve its BS.

Klaivex Charondyr wrote:

reducing  to 0 scatter is 4 out of 11 so roughly 36 %

It's 1/6 isn't it? Probabilities for 2D6 show that there are 6 results that give us a total of 4 or less, out of 36 possibilities.

So crudely speaking, scatter at BS 4 is roughly equivalent to hitting without scatter at BS3. However, higher results still give you a chance of hitting, depending on what you're shooting at, though this isn't quantifiable (too many variables like no. of models in unit, spacing, pattern that minimises effects of scatter etc)

I'm with Thor665 on this subject.
They are a real cheap weapon but lack the range which might make them interesting.
We do have cost-efficient AI weapons and on AT it is more situational that Dark Matter alternatives.

I could see them work if they were comparable with the TFC. I have had some funny things happen with those. Even they only have 4 small blasts, a unit that just DS'ed or an assault unit moving up behind cover are nicely clumped targets and there you will have a big impact.

But to pick those out, you need range. And the maximum we can achieve is 24" together with movement so the threat range is limited and you probably will face return fire.

I must admit that I was tempted by the low cost of the weapon but it costs so low because it isn't the most reliable option. So for competitive play this is a serious gamble.

I still find it kind of sad/funny that they both made Shredders cheaper and made them better and people still are not going to take them. Sometimes the designers seem to miss the trees for the leaves, y'know?

I just try to avoid small blasts altogether, whenever possible. Maybe it is just the way I roll scatter, but I rarely get much from them. I might get a model, but then I coulda got that model with a blaster, too.

it's situational - i played a game with my marines on saturday and the thunderfire cannon (four small blast markers) was averaging 19-20 hits on units of guardsmen (granted they were packed in very tight, but that happens more in friendly games I think)

I think the only way to play it worthly is Trueborn with WWP and 4 Shredders.

First of all, use other Choice to destroy any transport. Then, use Shreeder on disembarked unit.
That's all :-/

Ps: in this way, if u have no good objective, shoot against any 10 veichle's rear

4 Shredders could probably wreak serious havoc on a tightly packed mob of Orks, as 6+ armor saves really don't make much of a difference. Obviously, this is highly situational and for tailored lists only (though it would be great if tournaments started allowing a 'sideboard' of units that you could substitute in for specific opponents).

Well it sounds like I'm the only person running DE who uses his shredder, and to good effect, EVERY GAME.

...as a blaster ever since I snipped off the front and replaced it with a blast-pistol tip.

Laughingcarp wrote:

Well it sounds like I'm the only person running DE who uses his shredder, and to good effect, EVERY GAME.

...as a blaster ...ever since I snipped off the front and replaced it with a blast-pistol tip.

I have four or five sat waiting for just this treatment!

Shredders can be great I agree that boasters are better. They are strength 8 ap 2 while shredder str 6 ap- but still I has its uses against certain armies. Such ad guard large blobs low armor, daemons wounding on 2s 5 up do still have a large chance to deal damage.

115 pts:
5 Trueborn, 4 Blasters
Point-spent-per-wound against:
MEQ: 51.75 pts (77.6 pts with a 5+ cover sv)
TEQ: 77.65 pts
GEQ: 51.75 pts (77.6 pts with a 5+ cover sv)

75 pts:
5 Trueborn, 4 Shredders
Point-spent-per-wound against:
MEQ: (1 hit) 57.9 pts (2 hit) 28.9 pts (3 hit) 19.3 pts
TEQ: (1 hit) 115.7 pts (2 hit) 57.9 pts (3 hit) 38.6 pts
GEQ: (1 hit) 28.9 (2 hit) 14.5 pts (3 hit) 9.6 pts

How to interpret: The amount of points indicates how many points you'd need to spend on a unit to get a single wound. Therefore, the lower the value the better. It represents a unit's efficiency.

Depending on how accurate your Shredders are greatly dictates how effective it is as an AI weapon vs the Blaster. Should we assume the Shredders only hit one target, they are only more cost-effective at killing Guardsmen than Blasters. Should we assume the Shredders all hit at least 2 targets, then Shredders become much more cost-efficient at killing all types of infantry than Blasters. And in a generous scenario where the Shredders all hit at least 3 models, the Shredder is greatly more cost-efficient at all forms of AI than the Blaster. When infantry are in cover, the Shredder is better at killing any non-terminator unit so long as they all hit at least one model.

There are a few lurking variables, however. Terminators sit on medium-sized bases. As long as the models in a Terminator unit's bases aren't touching, it is impossible for a single Shredder to hit more than one target. However, this also makes it so that it's difficult not to hit a Terminator. Shredders, when only hitting once each, are also only more efficient for killing Terminators when they have a cover save better than 4+. Meaning that Blasters are more efficient at killing Terminators that don't have Storm Shields or aren't in 3+ cover. Additionally, although Shredders are very effective at killing Guardsmen, you are unlikely to hit enough of them to warrant using the Shredder over any other ranged AI weapon.

In addition, Blasters are almost always going to be in range sooner, and due to their range are more likely to survive being shot at -- allowing for more turns of shooting.

• Shredders cannot snap shoot, nor overwatch.
  
  
• Shredders lack Instant Death on T4.
  
  
• Shredders cannot Explode a vehicle.
  
  
• Shredders are less likely to hurt Monstrous Creatures.
  

When it comes to hunting Vehicles:
Shredders at first glance seem to have an advantage at killing vehicles than Blasters do. This is because it is very hard to miss with a Shredder when shooting at a vehicle like a Rhino. I believe the dimensions of a rhino is 4.5x3". Since 7" average scatter - BS4 and a 1.5" blast radius, it's actually difficult to not hit. However, math will show you that against AV11, Blasters and Shredders will inflict the same amount of Hull Points, except that Blasters are more likely to penetrate and get +1 on the Damage Vehicle result.

Shredders have the potential to be more cost-effective than Blasters. Situations like this occur when an opponent has to pile out of a wrecked vehicle, or when he's coming out of deep strike. These instances are not common enough to rely upon, however, and I believe the potential isn't great enough to warrant throwing away all the advantages the Blaster holds over the Shredder.

Lastly, the 12" range on the Shredder is its fatal flaw. In order for the Shredder to be more efficient than the Blaster, it must fire often and with accuracy. Accuracy is going to be rare against a competent opponent as discussed in the previous paragraph. But frequency is going to be lacking as well. Taking down Raiders is easy enough outside of Rapid Fire range, and putting Raiders that close is almost guaranteeing the death of your Trueborn.

Should you have a strategy that allows you to use Shredders so close to your opponent without them getting shot down immediately, and you already have sufficient anti-tank, then by all means use them. Tell me how you do it though.

Khordajj wrote:

The amount of points indicates how many points you'd need to spend on a unit to get a single wound.

Unsaved wound, or?

Laughingcarp wrote:

Khordajj wrote:

The amount of points indicates how many points you'd need to spend on a unit to get a single wound.

Unsaved wound, or?

Unsaved.

Something is not right with your numbers - for instance, why does the value for the Blaster change when a TEQ gets a cover save? That makes no sense, it's either a 5+ iinvuln or a 5+ cover - there should be no value shift there at all, and yet you show one.

Also, I just crunched the numbers of TEQ vs Shredder with 2 hits and got 67.56756 and you reported 62.3.

Are you confident in your numbers? I'm not sure how you're getting them.

Thor665 wrote:

Something is not right with your numbers - for instance, why does the value for the Blaster change when a TEQ gets a cover save? That makes no sense, it's either a 5+ iinvuln or a 5+ cover - there should be no value shift there at all, and yet you show one.

Also, I just crunched the numbers of TEQ vs Shredder with 2 hits and got 67.56756 and you reported 62.3.

Are you confident in your numbers? I'm not sure how you're getting them.

Yeah u right. I factored in a cover save for Terminators (for the Blasters) when they shouldn't have gotten one. In addition, a lot of my values were wrong and mostly overstated. I edited the original post for the new values.

I'll go through the TEQ with 1 Shredder hit statistic. 4 Shredders each hit once.
Wounds = 4*(5/6) + 4*(1/6)*(5/6)
Unsaved wounds = Wounds/6
Cost-efficiency = Cost of Trueborn unit / Unsaved wounds.

Wounds = 3.888...
Unsaved Wounds = .6481
Cost-efficiency for 1 Shredder hit against TEQ = 115.7

So it stands to reason that if all the Shredders hit 2 models each, then the cost efficiency will be twice as efficient. We can divide this value by two.

Cost-efficiency for 2 Shredder hits against TEQ = 57.9

Then it stands to reason that if the Shredders hit 3 models each, we can divide the original value by 3, or multiply the second value by 2/3.

Cost-efficiency for 3 Shredder hits against TEQ = 38.6

Here's my excel sheet for the rest of the values so you can double check if you'd like.

I like the current numbers better - though there is an inherent flaw in predicting no misses from the Shredders which strongly skews the results - but I see no other issues math wise.

Khordajj wrote:

There are a few lurking variables, however. Terminators sit on medium-sized bases. As long as the models in a Terminator unit's bases aren't touching, it is impossible for a single Shredder to hit more than one target.

I don't think that this is necessarily true. IIRC, nowhere in the BRB does it state that the blast template hole has to be over the *center* of the base.. just over the base (in fact, I think that the visual aid in the book may even have it slightly off-center to illustrate this point). So, no, the terminators do not need to be touching in order to hit 2 of them. Not to mention that if your blast scatters an inch or two, which is not unlikely to happen, you can still hit 2 or more models. if the center of the blast ends up in the gap between models.