Assault Troop Analysis

Our area tries to play by the book as much as possible, we roll off to see if it is Male or Eternal.

amishprn86 wrote:

Our area tries to play by the book as much as possible, we roll off to see if it is Male or Eternal.

That's not a mechanic out of the book though, is it? Except in the general sense of GW always saying "roll off for it" if you don't agree?

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

amishprn86 wrote:

Our area tries to play by the book as much as possible, we roll off to see if it is Male or Eternal.

That's not a mechanic out of the book though, is it? Except in the general sense of GW always saying "roll off for it" if you don't agree?

Pg 129 paragraph next to the Maelstrom Missions "If you and your opponent want to play from either of the two sections presented, roll-off against each other."


BUT pg 128. under "the Missions" Technically it says do whatever you want.

amishprn86 wrote:

Pg 129 paragraph next to the Maelstrom Missions "If you and your opponent want to play from either of the two sections presented, roll-off against each other."

Yeah, this is the normal GW line about "if you don't agree with your opponent, roll off for it". If it's worded poorly, we can probably assume it's due to a difference in commonly used terms between England and the US.

For instance, "get pissed" in England can mean to get drunk, while here in the US it means something completely different.

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

amishprn86 wrote:

Pg 129 paragraph next to the Maelstrom Missions "If you and your opponent want to play from either of the two sections presented, roll-off against each other."

Yeah, this is the normal GW line about "if you don't agree with your opponent, roll off for it". If it's worded poorly, we can probably assume it's due to a difference in commonly used terms between England and the US.

For instance, "get pissed" in England can mean to get drunk, while here in the US it means something completely different.

Well in the mid 1990's it meant get Drunk b.c of the song "I get knock Down" HAHAHA

But it literally is in the rules to roll off haha, tho it always gives you the option to do what ever you like.

Just like all games there is always house rules no matter what.

amishprn86 wrote:

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

amishprn86 wrote:

Pg 129 paragraph next to the Maelstrom Missions "If you and your opponent want to play from either of the two sections presented, roll-off against each other."

Yeah, this is the normal GW line about "if you don't agree with your opponent, roll off for it". If it's worded poorly, we can probably assume it's due to a difference in commonly used terms between England and the US.

For instance, "get pissed" in England can mean to get drunk, while here in the US it means something completely different.

Well in the mid 1990's it meant get Drunk b.c of the song "I get knock Down" HAHAHA

But it literally is in the rules to roll off haha, tho it always gives you the option to do what ever you like.

Just like all games there is always house rules no matter what.

It's actually not. That's what I'm trying to tell you. I'm like 90% sure this section means "if you and your opponent want to play from opposite sections, roll off for it":

Quote :

If you and your opponent want to play from either of the two sections presented, roll-off against each other.

But let's get an Englishman in here to weigh in.

That's almost certainly what it means.

That being said, 90% of my local players use Eternal War exclusively. I have NEVER seen a competitive event use Maelstrom. (And in fact, the ITC tournament at Gen Con will be my first time ever seeing modified Maelstrom at all.)

That being said, I'm not entirely convinced '2 turn assault' is out the window for modified maelstrom.

Jimsolo wrote:

That being said, 90% of my local players use Eternal War exclusively. 

Yeah, my core group was fairly resistant to maelstrom too. I'm not a fan of GW's version of Maelstrom of War missions. But ITC and Adepticon's custom/hybrid version is pretty good. My group played almost exclusively eternal war missions until we started using tournament rules to prepare for upcoming GTs. Last year and this year, almost all of the major GTs either used maelstrom or had a hybrid system of some sort.

It seems to me that pg129 is fairly clear:

The start of the section says:

Quote :

Eternal War & Maelstrom of War Missions
This book includes two sets of missions: Eternal War and Maelstrom of War.

It then goes on to say:

Quote :

If you and your opponent want to play a mission from either of the two sets presented in this section, roll-off against each other. The winner can decide which mission table to use.

So if you want to use either Maelstrom or Eternal War missions then you roll off and the winner decides which type to play. You can then choose from the relevant table or roll randomly for the mission.

Either... That's the problem, Count. You repeated the rule back to use in british-talk.

Does that mean that if both players want to play eternal war, you're technically supposed to roll for it anyhow?

Or does that mean only if 2 players disagree on what to play, you're supposed to roll?

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

Either... That's the problem, Count. You repeated the rule back to use in british-talk.

Does that mean that if both players want to play eternal war, you're technically supposed to roll for it anyhow?

Or does that mean only if 2 players disagree on what to play, you're supposed to roll?

The winner decide which game to play. So, if the 2 players want to play the same scenario, you don't have to roll, because the result will be the same.

Exactly. Technically you're supposed to roll off but if you're both going to pick the same missions then why bother?

Ok cool. Guess I was wrong.

its getting really philosophical in here ^^

Sorry to resurrect this but was having a look at Ur-Ghul's the other day and they actually post the highest assault stats vs GEQ at 0.099 on the charge

Vs MEQ they get 0.030

I used Ur-ghul's a few times for fun and funny thing is, they always did well in melee haha.

Kehmor, thanks for the addition. I have also just run the numbers, and you are correct.

On the charge

VS MEQ = 0.030
VS GEQ = 0.074

But this is only on the charge. The other units that we have analyzed only lost 1A after the charge (ie Grots going from 7A to 6A isnt a big deal). But for the Ur-Ghul not only do you loose the attack, but you also loose the strength.

After charge:

VS MEQ = 0.017
VS GEQ = 0.044

So in both cases the Lhamean is just superior. Now if Fear actually had meaning...

fisheyes wrote:

Kehmor, thanks for the addition. I have also just run the numbers, and you are correct.

On the charge

VS MEQ = 0.030
VS GEQ = 0.074

But this is only on the charge. The other units that we have analyzed only lost 1A after the charge (ie Grots going from 7A to 6A isnt a big deal). But for the Ur-Ghul not only do you loose the attack, but you also loose the strength.

After charge:

VS MEQ = 0.017
VS GEQ = 0.044

So in both cases the Lhamean is just superior. Now if Fear actually had meaning...

How did you get the 0.074 vs GEQ?

They hit on 3's, wound on 2's, 5+ save with 4 attacks and 15 points. So...

2/3 x 5/6 x 2/3 x 4 = 80/54 = 1.481 ish

1.481/15 = 0.099 ish

You are correct, I made a mistake assuming they hit on 4's.

Regardless, this is only for the first round of combat. Generally if you are charging into some GEQ, you are not wiping the squad on the charge. After the FC bonus is over, your still stuck with minimal damage output.

Now if they had Hit and Run like Reavers...

Sorry about resurrecting this thread - had a question: I'm assuming the calcs don't take into account the resilience (Toughness, Armor, FnP, etc.) of the attacking DE units? Or does it?

If no, how would Lhameans stack up against say Grots that are much more resilient?

It does not, at least not really. resiliency is a woefully overlooked category in our estimations mostly due to our predisposition to care more about the large points of demarkation vs the small. In short because basically everything in our army is t3 t4 or t5 with functionally no saves we care far more about a preponderance of weapons that double out a given toughness (str6 for instance), and care less about the minutiae of per point cost for that resiliency.

I care about that topic at present though due to calculating out what units benefit the most from a corsair void dreamer with a shimmershield. Lhamaen's, Wyches, Hellions, and especially Wracks, are actually dirt cheap within that metric. Wracks would be the most resilient unit in the army by far if they had a higher model cap.

To answer your question: grotesques by far. To do what you want yourself: add up the number of models it would take to match wounds with 1 grotesque and compare costs. Against str3 you get a few more hits, and hit first, with lhameans but that one grotesque is getting wounded on 6s, and as strength goes up the scenario favors grotesques more and more.

I guess my question then is how do Incubi fare compared to Grots vs MEQ when resiliency is taken into account?

Grotesques are close to Incubi and Lhamaeans in damage output on a points normalised basis, but are much harder to remove. My experience with Incubi has been if they are not shot up in between, they can run through one squad of Marines, but will have lost enough models to be marginal against a second squad. Grotesques are much more likely to survive multiple combats.

Resilience is a tricky thing to quantify fairly, in a spreadsheet style analysis, as you need a standard configuration for both the attacking and defending unit, as well as factors like cover and special rules. I have been meaning to do some more analysis along these lines though, so will see if I can get something prepared.

Incubi are a T3 3+ armour save for 20pts per wound. vs an almost guaranteed 5+ feel no pain at t5 for 11.7 pts per wound.

Against the most common weapon strength in the game, str4 because of the the sheer prevalence of spacemarines in CC or using bolter, and presuming no modifiers, Incubi are going to average .66 hits against turning into actual wounds. Of these wounds 2/3 should be discounted from the armour save, (.22W) and after turn 3 a further 3rd will be discounted from fnp. (.1452W) so for every attack that actually scores a hit only .1452W should be caused.

Same scenario with Grotesques T5 are only going to take .33 potential wounds per hit in the first place. They'll almost always get fnp (.22WPH). If it's marine punches instead of bolters, grotesques are going to discount a further 1/6 of hits from their awful armour save resulting in .185WPH. Not quite as good, certainly not terrible since that's almost as good as only having a +2invuln (.166wph). For 12pts per wound.


Everything changes if you change any of the variables, but in almost all worse for you cases Grotesques are catch up to or surpass incubi in survivability, and they are always more cost efficient for that survivability.

That's actually sad but don't tell games workshop or they'll make the grotesques worse in the next codex.