Assault Troop Analysis

Korazell wrote:

This is extremely relevant to my interests...

However, I feel like the succubus needs to be included. My reasoning is that they are cheap and with a blob of something to protect them, they are usually included in with grots to put them to toughness 5-6, I forget what...

Honestly, a succubus would probably get outclassed in every category by other troops if the other troops were allowed options in this analysis. For instance, if you allowed every unit that could do so to add a sergeant with an agonizer, suddenly grotesques would be the clear winner in every category except against TEQ, where Incubi would defeat all comers, including a succubus due to her extremely high price compared to non-HQ units.

Though, obviously, other options surviveability is an issue, whereas you can put a succubus with whatever you want in order to increase her surviveability, so don't think I'm saying the other units are all in all BETTER. I'm just saying that in the way this analysis is set up, they'd outperform against her in the test.

Thinking about this overnight, I am wondering about whether we need to consider the whole price of a unit (potentially including transport) to make a fair comparison.

Grotesques for example generally need a character with them to deal with low leadership, unless they are part of a Grotesquerie, where they come with a Haemonculus anyway. Either way you are likely to want a transport them, and the value of the transport is mostly (but not totally) in delivery of the cargo.

I think it is also worth explicitly stating some things like game turn and whether charging or not. I still think it is worth including both charging and non-charging results. Furious Charge and Rage both add to the complexity if all game turns are considered. On balance I would be thinking of an early game assault (say turn 2, which would avoid Furious Charge and Rage).

Thanks everyone for your comments. Based on what people are saying I have updated my main list. The updates include: Adding Reavers and Talos to the list, including Grot Rage (average of an extra 2A), include charge bonus (along with HOW. I should have included this already, but sleep deprivation and all…). Interestingly this charge bonus has slightly changed the ordering of a few units (mostly the Wracks going up the list).

I don’t think its fair to compare our HQs to our troops in terms of (damage output)/(model cost). This analysis would not account for AoM or the Ld that they provide to a squad. For example, against MEQ our succubus with glave would get 0.018, just a hair better than a regular wych (this is using the AP2 mode. Its even worse with the AP3 mode).

Im surprised that no one has any other useful enemy units to compare against. I figured that people would have been interested in seeing how these guys do against Riptides or some other MC.

Please keep in mind that the topic of discussion is “what is the best assault troop for our transports”. Its nice to have  a few units that don’t need transports for comparison purposes, but they are not our focus. Although a valid conclusion we could draw is that assaulting out of transports just isn’t that great (although I worry that the question may become why play DE at all). Luckily we can see that most of the top units are guys who DO need a transport.

Something that I found interesting is that Talos suck at killing Wraiths. I would have thought that the high S wounding on 2’s would have helped a lot.

This is...interesting. On the one hand, it shows some useful data for offensive capacity. I'm gratified to see Incubi so high on the list. In the early days of the new codex it felt like all hands were against them.

On the other hand, Warren Zevon summed up assault qualifications best: "The name of the game is to be hit and hit back." And I think the 'getting hit' part is a pretty integral part of the equation. I wish there was an accurate way to measure that in a mathhammer capacity. (I admit, I'm not that great at mathhammer.) It seems like if you do that, Grotesques and Taloi move up the list of usability a little bit.

I ALSO wonder, just for my own curiosity, where the Hellions would fall in this number range.

Final note: if you kept your formulas, would it be super hard to show data on assaulting vehicles? It feels to me like some of our units are really good at doing that in assault.

The Hellions are OK. They get 0.028 vs MEQ (the same as Reavers), but this is assuming they are getting their HOW. This analysis also doesnt account for Drugs, or the value of Hit and Run.

The issue with analyzing vehicle damage is Penetrating Hits. I could come up with a (HP inflicted)/(unit cost), but it would not take into account Talos getting 6's to destroy vehicles. Any suggestions on how to do a fair analysis? Maybe count Pens as 2 HP (for the purposes of weighting the results)?

A similar issue with involving PfP and transport costs. Its simply too much work (and not terribly useful) to analyze our units turn-by-turn. We can already see the relative usefulness of each of our units based on what we have, so getting our Furious Charge bonus will increase all the values, but the ranking should stay about the same.

As for transports, how do we calculate the cost/model for our calculations? I think that we have our relative rankings, and that the actual value of (damage inflicted)/cost doesnt mean very much.

Jimsolo wrote:

Final note: if you kept your formulas, would it be super hard to show data on assaulting vehicles?  It feels to me like some of our units are really good at doing that in assault.

Cluster caltrops are great for this. I have been using them to crack transports, I call it "preparing dinner for the grotesques". 3+ jink comes in handy for overwatch too.

Been trying so hard to get the surround and wipe out the unit lol. Hasn't happened yet, but I have faith!

Are these base? or with added weapons?

B.c some units can get game changing weapons (AP, rending, Poison, ID etc...)

Where some units dont really get any of them.


Combining War Gear I wonder what would be best.

These numbers are including weapons (both bonus attack, and effects such as AP and poison). It also includes the bonus attack (and HOW) for charging.

I have not included caltrops, but you can imagine that it would slightly impove the results. The relative ranking should stay about the same though (increased kills, but also substantial increase in points/model).

I think its safe to say that we can now draw some conclusions based on these numbers.

1. Incubi are substantially better in CC than most of our units (almost 50% better in most cases). With 3+ and 5++ (FNP at turn 3), I think these guys will be getting a seat on my next raid

2. Lhamean are significantly better than I first thought. Their weakness to enemy attacks is somewhat mitigated by the fact that they "should" be in a transport until reaching combat, and that they are striking at I5 (so before marines in most cases). 5+ and 5++(FNP) help, but they WILL die if left alone. A unit of 10 in a raider backing up some Grots or Incubi would definitely be helpful. Also the ability to add in Sslyth to give them majority T5 would add a lot of survivability.

3. Beastpack generally out-preform reavers as non-transport CC units. This doesnt account for their survivability, which is much less than the reavers with Jink (although with Ignores Cover, Im not sure how often this will get used).

4. Wyches suck at everything. Never going to use them in a list (although I may buy a pack to convert a bunch of Lhamean)

What are other peoples thoughts?

But what weapons? I mean you can have an Agoniser on a Wych, ID on Talos etc.. etc..

Yes it cost more, but if the increase in wounds is worth it.

fisheyes wrote:

I think its safe to say that we can now draw some conclusions based on these numbers.

1. Incubi are substantially better in CC than most of our units (almost 50% better in most cases). With 3+ and 5++ (FNP at turn 3), I think these guys will be getting a seat on my next raid

2. Lhamean are significantly better than I first thought. Their weakness to enemy attacks is somewhat mitigated by the fact that they "should" be in a transport until reaching combat, and that they are striking at I5 (so before marines in most cases). 5+ and 5++(FNP) help, but they WILL die if left alone. A unit of 10 in a raider backing up some Grots or Incubi would definitely be helpful. Also the ability to add in Sslyth to give them majority T5 would add a lot of survivability.

3. Beastpack generally out-preform reavers as non-transport CC units. This doesnt account for their survivability, which is much less than the reavers with Jink (although with Ignores Cover, Im not sure how often this will get used).

4. Wyches suck at everything. Never going to use them in a list (although I may buy a pack to convert a bunch of Lhamean)

What are other peoples thoughts?

1) Whilst they might be the best of a bad bunch, I've never found Incubi particularly useful. For one, I find them too specialised. AP2 is nice, but 2 attacks each at S4 is far less so for a glass-cannon. Then we have the fact that they have no haywire grenades or other means to take out vehicles or walkers. And, of course, they lack assault grenades. In terms of toughness, they're pretty awful. A 3+ save isn't great these days, even when it's not attached to a T3 model. And the less said about FNP on a T3 model, the better. Also, much as I like AP2, the issue I have with Incubi is that they suck against the things I want AP2 for. When I want AP2, it's usually to take out stuff like Dreadknights. But Incubi just lack the strength (or rerolls, or weight of attacks) to be a serious threat to MCs. Then there are various characters with 2+ saves (amongst other things), but I find Incubi useless against them as well. Suddenly their "high" WS counts for nothing, and once again they just don't have the weight of attacks to force enough saves.

I want to like Incubi because of the models and fluff, but their rules just fall short. And, anecdotally, my Incubi have never once done well (even when accompanied by a character).

2) The issue with Lhamaeans is that they don't seem to bring anything to the table that I can't already do with shooting. At least AP2 on Incubi fills a niche (sort of, a bit). With Lhamaeans, I don't see the point of taking a bunch of really fragile models with no grenades and trying to get them into combat, when I could just blast away at the enemy from 36" away. I guess you could hope for ID but I'm not that optimistic.

3) I prefer the mobility and survivability of Reavers. Also, since I often use them as anti-vehicle, I like that they can take a Heat-Lance/Blaster and that they can have d6 S6 Rending HoW hits.

4) No disagreement here.

I have only included for the basic weapons, none of the upgrades. But if you increase the cost of the unit by 20%, just to increase the chance of wounding from 4/6 to 5/6, I doubt it would reflect well on our numbering system.

I completely forgot about the ID on Lhameans. So this would boost their numbers slightly (vs the wraith anyway).

What the analysis seems to say (to me anyway) is that the Incubi are perfectly good vs T4 models. Once you get to the higher T opponents, having the 2+ poison really helps regardless as to armour save. Ill certainly be bringing them to the next game, and will comment on how they do.

I think some more comparisons could be made given different scenarios. Yes Incubi and Lhamean score the best in attack, but what about when fighting units of 5 MEQ, 10 MEQ, Overwatch survivability, attacking at Int 1, surviving an exploding Raider, etc to then see who comes out ontop overall

First off thank you very much for taking the time to mathshammer this out.

I do feel it might be worth while to include some of the most have upgrades (maybe as a separate entry). For instance Reavers always take the caltrops. Could be interesting to also list the efficiency of certain upgrades along side the damage done by the naked unit.

Wyches are now totally (more than before) useless without the plasma grenades in close combat.
They should have been cheaper for what they actually do now...

Ultimatejet wrote:

Wyches are now totally (more than before) useless without the plasma grenades in close combat.
They should have been cheaper for what they actually do now...

This is the problem I have with the dark eldar in general at this point.  They're theoretically a middle of the road army between swarms and elites, but while the troops costs are in this range (comparable to fire-warriors, guardians, or marine scouts), they're nowhere near as flexible or effective.

Vehicles have instead become our "must take" units, and the troops have really just become a tax.  After the 7th edition changes to the skyfire rule and the recent FAQ (draft) though, these transports have become more vulnerable and less useful in general.

I actually hope that the next codex will see us move more towards a lower cost swarm army, with higher capacity transports.  It makes sense fluff wise as there are billions in the dark city (a distinct advantage over craftworlders or corsairs), and you'd want to bring as many with you as possible on a raid.

stilgar27 wrote:

I actually hope that the next codex will see us move more towards a lower cost swarm army, with higher capacity transports.  It makes sense fluff wise as there are billions in the dark city (a distinct advantage over craftworlders or corsairs), and you'd want to bring as many with you as possible on a raid.

Whilst this does seem to be the easiest way to make us competitive I disagree it fits with the fluff. Wyches for instance are meant to be masters of combat - you shouldn't need 10 of them to kill 1 and a half space marines - even if they are cheaper point wise. I'd much rather we got specialised units - and went back to being a glass cannon - rather than a glass watergun.

fisheyes wrote:

I have not included caltrops, but you can imagine that it would slightly impove the results. The relative ranking should stay about the same though (increased kills, but also substantial increase in points/model).

I disagree with this as a general principle on unit upgrades. For instance, an aberration with an agonizer is a significant force multiplier for grots against MEQ and worse armour. I'd venture that it'd probably at least double(+100%) a 3 man unit's effectiveness, while only costing 33% of the cost of the squad.

The same applies to caltrops, in that caltrops put out an average of 3.5 HoW hits, compared to 1 hit without them, applied at a higher strength. This multiplies that unit's effectiveness by 2-3 times, while costing less than 1 more model.

That's actually one of my 2 biggest hesitations with using results from this analysis.

1. The analysis completely ignores available force multipliers in the form of available upgrades.(It'd be like analyzing scourges against tanks without allowing them to buy haywire blasters).

2. This analysis ignores all the models ability to survive, and attack. (Ignores toughness values, lack of assault grenades causing them to attack at initiative 1, etc).

I agree whole heartedly with betray. A hekatrix w/agoniser costs the same as 4 wyches while averaging .44 more unsaved wounds versus meq with her 4 attacks than their 12.

I think this math is a great base but it needs a little refinement before it could be considered definitive.

Honestly, I think that we almost have the most play-styles present but not supported.

I can see us being a swarm faction in the realm of Hellions, beast packs, and our venom spam even, but then I also see "elite" status infantry without really having the rules or stats to back them up. We also have access to a ton of vehicles and fast moving skimmers, but they aren't supported well.

We have close combat units that are little more than tarpits, we have troops that are more of a tax, and our strongest showing is in our fast attack slots where we are supported by our special rules and our special Coven Formations where we can show off the meatier aspects of our faction.

I'm desperately hoping for a new codex soon, but, until then...

I'd like to see this math formula get a bit more refined. I agree we should include all the realistic options as well as finding a way to score a unit on the ability to both get there, hit, and be hit.

Ok, we can add an analysis of (simple) common force multipliers. So far we have

Reavers w Caltrops
Incubi (Klavex) with base Klaive
Grots (Aberration) w Agonizer
Wych (Hekatrix) w Agonizer

My formula will be assuming the most efficient squad size for our analysis. IE 3 man squads of reavers/grots and 5 man squad of incubi/wyches. The formula will be (total unit damage output)/(total unit cost) so that we can get a relative comparison of the units. I don’t think there is much point in analyzing the Talos, as we already have Reavers as a non-transport “benchmark”. I hesitate to start doing other calculations (such as survivability), I feel that is another thread entirely.

My prediction is that only caltrops will increase the squads value. The rest of them cost too much, and dont do enough to affect the squads damage output. But it would be nice to know which ones preform well. Please note that these numbers are not scripture, I made many assumptions to simplify the calculations. The numbers presented are only really useful for comparison purposes.

Any other requests for proposed “unit multiplier”? Preferably lets keep this focused on trying to improve our transport-based assault troops. Also remember that we are only analyzing damage output, so having better armour, etc will not be reflected in the units ranking.

I ran some of those numbers myself, and the Caltrops, Klaivex (if getting Rampage) and Agoniser Aberration all add value to those units on an output basis against MEQ. Not so much the Hekatrix.

The other unit option I would be interested to see would be a beastpack of some configuration.

I would still rather see the numbers on a per 100 points basis just to get rid of the decimal places.

fisheyes wrote:

Grots (Aberration) w Agonizer

Don't forget that the grots get to re-roll failed to-wound rolls!

Kantalla wrote:

I would still rather see the numbers on a per 100 points basis just to get rid of the decimal places.

Per point is the easiest comparison because of varying point values between units. If you want to know on a per 100 points value, just multiply his values times 100. There are so many steps to making these calculations to begin with, I think we can hold back on having him make this one too. For those that want it in this format, it's an easy conversion.

Kind of surprised to see people recommending the Agonizer on an Aberration. I prefer the Scissorhand, myself.

Jimsolo wrote:

Kind of surprised to see people recommending the Agonizer on an Aberration.  I prefer the Scissorhand, myself.  

The rending part of the scissorhand is rarely useful in my opinion, because you're already getting auto-wounds on a fixed number from poison(with rerolls to wound, which you lose with scissorhand), and the AP2 on 6's isn't super useful because I generally don't send grots after termies unless they're with a succubus(who takes care of the AP2 part).

Against everything except 2+ armour, the agonizer ends up being way more efficient. Even moreso since they're usually wounding on 2+ or 3+ with rerolling fails...that means that the AP3 of the agonizer comes into play on 4-5 "To Wound" results(2-6), while the AP2 of the scissorhand only comes into play on 1 of them. That makes the agonizer 400%-500% as useful against all other armour values, while only being 20% less effective against 2+.

It's probably criminal of me to be so stingy with my Grotesquerie. They have done so well in the past and I'm sure would reward me if I shelled out a few more points, but I can never bring myself to add an additional grots cost for the aberration w/agoniser, which is definitely the weapon choice I would recommend if you're getting one.