March Madness Challenger Edition: Part 3, Round 1 over!

Some gruesome combat occurred! Lucky rolls by some contestants helped them move on and even luckier rolls helped others survive a certain death. Also, Crowe makes the most boring combats ever. Read up on the winners and losers after the jump:

March Madness Challenger Edition: Part 2, Brackets and Rules

So it came to my attention that a few of the Challengers can resurrect themselves and that some others may not die within average game length 1v1 so to counteract this we have the following rules:

• 5 Rounds
• No charges, we are assuming that both Challengers stepped up to fight simultaneously
• Most wounds after 5 rounds wins
• If there is a tie, there is a sudden death round, whomever does the most wounds in that round wins, in the even there is still a tie it's a roll-off.
• If both contenders die, the one who did more wounds moves on (Instant death only counts as 1 wounds for this purpose)
• Resurrection Bracket: After the winners are determined there is a loser's bracket where the loser's have a second chance at final victory.
• During the second round there will be 2 mini-brackets. 4 random Challengers will fight in each of the brackets with 1 winner coming out and rejoining each bracket. This is due to the odd number of contenders.

And that's that. Now the Bracket. I apologize for not having proper bracket format but I'm a Blogger newbie so bear with me. To make the bracket I put every name into a computer program that then randomly paired the names off. Here we go:

March Madness Challenger Edition: Part 1, The Contenders

This is an article all about how Aba-Aba-Abaddon wins. Not really. I wanna know: Who is the wins a unique HQ fight Bracket style. For this I'm going to be using real rolls and not math calculations so place your bets! Anyone could win! 

Now obviously this is a vast undertaking so I've decided to limit the contenders (alphabetically):

Khorne Hounds + Karanak: A love story

I don't like Karanak or Hounds. So, I lied about the love story part. I just want to do a bunch of comparisons to make you not like them or at least take something else. Here we go:

MEQ Blob

What's more dangerous than an IG blob? The same blob consisting of Space Marines obviously. Mission: fit as many MEQ as you can into one list. Second Mission: cut some of the fat.

Mission 1
Dark Angels Primary, Space Marines Ally (this is because DA MEQs are all cheaper)

HQ
Librarian, (Divination, Standard of Devastation, Force Sword), 130

Troops
10 Spess Marines, (Flamer), 145
10 Spess Marines, (Flamer), 145
10 Spess Marines, (Flamer), 145
10 Spess Marines, (Flamer), 145
10 Spess Marines, (Flamer), 145
10 Spess Marines, (Flamer), 145

Ally

HQ
Librarian, (Biomancy, Telepathy, Force Axe), 100

Troops
10 Space Marines, (Flamer, Multi-Melta), 170
10 Space Marines, (Flamer), 170

Total: 1440

You can add some upgrades for the squads but really at 1500 points this is what you can get. 60 Marines and 2 Librarians helping buff them. The Standard of Devastation/Divination Librarian gives everyone Salvo 2/4 Bolters and takes Prescience for re-roll to hit on a squad. Since you're only at 1440 I'd take another Divination Librarian and remove 1 flamer.

Now for a full 1999+1 list I'd change it to this:


HQ
Librarian, (Divination, Standard of Devastation, Force Sword), 130
Librarian, (Divination, Storm Bolter, Force Axe), 70

Troops
10 Spess Marines, (Plasma Gun, Multi-Melta), 165
10 Spess Marines, (Plasma Gun, Multi-Melta), 165
10 Spess Marines, (Plasma Gun, Multi-Melta), 165
10 Spess Marines, (Plasma Gun, Multi-Melta), 165
10 Spess Marines, (Plasma Gun, Multi-Melta), 165
10 Spess Marines, (Plasma Gun, Multi-Melta), 165

Fast Attack
10 Assault Marines, (Melta Bomb, Flamer x2), 185
10 Assault Marines, (Melta Bomb, Flamer x2), 185

2000 on the nose. The second divination Librarian got a Storm Bolter because I had 5 extra points. The full list is now:

HQ
Librarian, (Divination, Standard of Devastation, Force Sword), 130
Librarian, (Divination, Storm Bolter, Force Axe), 70

Troops
10 Spess Marines, (Plasma Gun, Multi-Melta), 165
10 Spess Marines, (Plasma Gun, Multi-Melta), 165
10 Spess Marines, (Plasma Gun, Multi-Melta), 165
10 Spess Marines, (Plasma Gun, Multi-Melta), 165
10 Spess Marines, (Plasma Gun, Multi-Melta), 165
10 Spess Marines, (Plasma Gun, Multi-Melta), 165

Fast Attack
10 Assault Marines, (Melta Bomb, Flamer x2), 185
10 Assault Marines, (Melta Bomb, Flamer x2), 185

Ally
HQ
Librarian, (Biomancy, Telepathy, Force Axe), 100

Troops
10 Space Marines, (Flamer, Multi-Melta), 170
10 Space Marines, (Flamer, Multi-Melta), 170

Now you have a total of 103 MEQ which makes me laugh. The Multi-meltas can be switched for Flakk missile launchers if you drop the Plasma Gun. I'm not too worried about Flyers in my local meta (not many people can/want to afford them) so I just take MMs for blowing up lots of vehicles. You have two Divination Librarians giving you 2 10 man units with 32 re-roll to hit bolter shots each. This will get about 10 MEQ per turn or 19 FX per turn. And then everyone else gets to shoot. So with this list you can take out blobs and vechicle parks but you'll have some trouble with flyers. It's not that bad except for transporting this monstrosity.

Chaos Land Raider List

Just a fun list to try out. You have almost no troops and very little of anything else. You might not win with the list but it'll be fun to put down on the board:

HQ
Warpsmith
Warpsmith
(to repair vehicles)

Troops
Cultists (minimum)
Cultists

Elites
Terminators w/Land Raider
Terminators w/Land Raider
Terminators w/Land Raider

Heavy Support
Land Raider w/Dozer Blade
Land Raider w/Dozer Blade
Land Raider w/Dozer Blade


This list is fun to me because not a lot of local people bring Melta anymore and only Dark Eldar can spam lances. I mean a power fist needs a 6 just to glance. The idea is you break down the enemy tanks and such until nothing is left. Almost everything in your army is twin-linked which is nice. You won't be able to take down a blob with this but you might not lose any units the whole game (as long as every stays buttoned up)

Again not a winning list but 6 Land Raiders is a little hilarious to put down.

Quickie: Is that Psyker gonna work?

Just wanted to throw out some quick maths on the failure rate of Psykers.

1/6 deny the witch and 3/36 fail to cast with Ld 10. With Ld 9 it's an additional 1/6.

So in total those powers cast on enemies have a 25% failure rate with Ld 10 and a 33% rate with Ld 9.

Now how about that gun you've got? Storm bolter? BS 4 means you have 33% chance of hitting. Against MEQ with your 2 shots you cause .11 wound per shot or .22 wounds total. Meaning you have a very low (less than 60%) chance of killing someone.

I include the storm bolter comparison to validate Psychic powers. It was much easier to get one off last edition but in this edition they're the best shooting attacks outside of BS 5 and still pretty good besides. In a 5 turn game you have a 65% chance of passing every power. That's good odds. If it's against other units you have a 23% chance in a 5 turn game of hurting someone every time. Still pretty good odds for a unit wide shooting attack.

Honestly, enemy specific psychic powers get a bad rap with Deny the Witch but the odds are as in your favor as they can get in this game.

Bloodthirster will eat your face.

Your whole face in fact.

I'm enthralled with the Bloodthirster but I was at a loss on how to deck him out. I keep looking back at the previous codex with a forlorn look and a hopeless attitude. No S8 titan slapping plebs in face anymore. But then I got thinking, you're getting Deathstrike, you're getting Greater rewards and potentially awesome Exalted rewards. I'm also looking at Lesser Rewards with a small smile and it makes me think that there's hope for the Bloodthirster still.

But how to equip him? That's what I'll be looking into today.

Artifacts and Daemon Princes: The (OP?) Black Mace

I've seen countless builds with DP Warlords carrying around thuggish Black Maces bludgeoning troops to death. But is it that good? Let's take a look.

The most powerful weapon of the far future: Clubs

Quickie: Do Flakk Missles work?

No. Well, not really. Let's take a look:

It's S7 AP4 Skyfire. This allows you to fire it at your normal BS at Flyers. Now we'll look at how they function against Flying MCs and Flyers vs. an Autocannon (S7 AP4 Heavy 2).

Math Rules
MEQs are the ones to get these so BS is 4 always.
FMC's have toughness 6
Pretty much every flyer is 12/12/10 or 12/12/12 (Necrons are 11/11/11 but whatever)so we'll use AV12 (I'm doubting your heavy unit manages to get behind a flyer often)
They won't be evading or diving (ie no Jink)

Monster Mash!

Double post day! I wanted to post a list I found interesting that combines Daemons and CSM and MONSTERS!

Your opponents after you set down your army

I want a Daemon Prince! How to get Dark Apotheosis with Dark Apostles

The Chaos Boon table is a thing of beauty. The two Glaring Possiblities are Dark Apotheosis and Spawnhood. With a Dark Apostle or the re-roll boon Warlord trait you have a much better possibility of getting something good. How much better though?

Shadow of the Warp: How effective?

I've had the math done on Shadow of the Warp for awhile. This rule is crazy nice against psykers and you really get your bang for the buck with it being always active within 12'' of certain monsters. Since Flyrants and Tervigons are staples of current Tyranid armies you'll likely have several units with this rule.

GK HQ's: What do they give you?

Now Grey Knights have a very unique codex as far as HQ's go. Several of their HQ's unlock certain units as troops choices and thus completely alter the composition of the army. While some of those HQ's are pretty bad units themselves (Crowe comes to mind) the units each of them unlock can drastically change the composition of your army for the better even if the HQ itself is lackluster.

The HQ's who give access to new units are: Draigo, Crowe and Coteaz. They each unlock an Elite slot unit for selection as Troops. They are (in order): Paladins, Purifiers and Inquisitorial Henchmen. Each HQ is a very different unit so I'll review them each to show how they function and postulate as to how you can use them in the game.

You came to the wrong neighborhood

MAGIC! (CSM Sorcerers)

Today I wanna talk about the sleeker, sexier, sorcerer(ier) HQ in the CSM codex: The Sorcerer. A very good, cheap HQ that really requires no upgrades to still be effective. 60 points for a mandatory HQ in a Space Marine equivalent codex is really good. You can spend the extra points on your troops and vehicles and such. Honestly a Captain costs 40 points more, meaning you can take a Rhino and a Sorcerer for the cost of a basic MEQ HQ. And have 5 points left over (get something nice for your mother).  Let's analyze each mark first and how they benefit the sorcerer and then mathhammer the powers.

Oh 'Lord'y!

Time to talk CSM. The next most recent codex...or whatever. The penultimate Codex. Chaos Space Marines. So far, their codex is doing awesome, what with cheap meat in the form of Cultists and excellent flyers, the Heldrake, as well as the ability to field cheap sorcerers, monster HQs and tons of heavy weapons in the form of Havocs they have become a force to reckon with. The army is excellent as primary or allied but today, I'm here to talk about Lords. Oh yes.

Pretty much every Chaos Lord's dream outfit

Specific Questions:
How do I make the most Killy Lord?
What CC weapons does he get? (Hint: He always gets CC weapons. Always)
Should he take a mount?
What about Marks?

Chaos Daemons: Part 12, Concluding Comments

So how does this Codex stack up?

Chaos Daemons: Part 11, Heavy Support

Here are the 'good' units of Chaos. This is what you need to compete against flyers and semi-mech now so expect to bring some of these or get boned. I'm including Daemon Princes here because the Flying Circus build (5 flying MCs) is really the only good way to take DPs.

Note: Since the current Burning Chariot of Tzeentch is completely broken (if it moves it's BS 1 and can't fire one of it's weapons) I'm not going to review it. It's completely un-takeable without an FAQ or houserule. It most literally does not work as written. (Also sidenote: why can't Flamers get an Exalted Flamer? That'd be awesome. Instead you get a Pyrocaster who gets? Random Rewards. Grand.)

Chaos Daemons: Part 10, Fast Attack

YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

Never a strong point for Daemons, until the White Dwarf update made Screamers great anti-vehicle units, fast attack has not been change in any good ways. They now have a fast unit for Nurgle...but the units rules are not described anywhere in the book (Jet Pack Calvary) so are we to assume they can function like either whenever it suits the unit best? Another thing that needs an FAQ. Furies are now somewhat choosable and their fluff has been entirely rewritten to their benefit. They now have Ld 2 though which to me seems insane but there you have it. Let's get into it.

Chaos Daemons: Part 9, Elites

At least it sounds good

This article is about the Daemons Elite section. A very sad amalgamation of old units and Fantasy rules. Apparently Phil Kelly thinks 6+ is the best armor you can get in 40k (It's the highest number after all!). Apparently some of the previous Elites section (coughFlamerscough) were in need of a rewrite because they were 'too strong' because having something, anything, useful in a codex is a big fat no-no and needs to be dealt with. Luckily the two good anti-vehicle units from the last codex, Flamers and Screamers post-update, have been replaced by a BS 3 crap-shoot that sits in your back-lines because he'll get smoked by basic MEQ and a flying cavalcade of bad rules design known as flying monstrous creatures.

At least Bloodcrushers still look bad-ass as hell and they didn't revert to the old model:

Yeesh

Welp, here we go.

Chaos Daemons: Part 8, Addendum

Forgot Nurglings, you should too.

Chaos Daemons: Part 8, Troops

With a brief review a the troops you can see that some are improved. There are more options (random options) for your characters, everyone has pretty reduced stat-lines and are cheaper. But as in last edition, they blow. They honestly suck against MEQ and FX but at least they're cheaper. Which does make them somewhat good. The problem is that in order to make Plaguebearers and Pink Horrors cheaper they decided to nerf them pretty hard. Why? It's not like we were slaughtering units left and right with absurdly priced troops before. Now they're fairly priced but they get nerfs? That's like going to a dealership and the guy says, "Listen, I'll drop the price on the car by half, but I'll take out the engine and the back wheels." just because it's cheaper doesn't make it a deal. Anywho let's see how they stack up to previous incarnations.

Chaos Daemons: Part 7, Unique HQ's

Don't take them.

Whoops, I should introduce this section first. This is about the Daemon's unique HQ's (Changleing, Skulltaker, The Masque, Epidemius, The Blue Scribes and Karanak). Due to poor writing you can't take The Masque or The Blue Scribes as part of your 4 HQ limit. Most of these HQ's are cheaper (or the same price) except Karanak, who is no longer an upgrade for Hounds of Khorne? No idea why. He went from 50 (15 for Hound, 35 for Upgrade) points to 120. He's got a little more of everything though but is just not worth it in a shooting game. Let's get into why you should never take any of these guys (other than for cheesy cheese or fluffy armies)

Chaos Daemons: Part 6, Heralds

Winner takes all. It's the thrill of one more kill...

Cheap, deadly, unit-buffing HQs. Sergeants on steriods is a better term for the Heralds. You now get to take 4 of them for each HQ slot so Daemons get buffed as Allies and as Primary. They each get access to Daemonic Loci (some are better than others, admittedly) which have a unit buff effect making them and their entourage even better. Honestly, if I could choose my rewards I'd almost say these guys are overpowered. But I can't so I won't. Let's begin.

Battle Report: GK Termies v. Bloodthirster

Battle Scenario: How likely is it for a 5-man group of GK termies to kill a Bloodthirster in CC? I'll go over one scenario: GK's get assaulted

Chaos Daemons, Part 5, (D)MC's

Yes.
Now we are at the good part. Completely customizable wrecking balls. Flying wrecking balls. With axes and swords. Goddamn I love me some MC's. Let's get started. First, as usual, is Khornnnnnneeeeee.

Chaos Daemons: Part 4, Unique HQ's

If this is set up across from you, concede. 

Today we'll go over the Unique HQ's. For a good comparison we'll look back at the previous codex's version of each of the unique HQ's. We'll go in the order they appear, first up:

Chaos Daemons: Part 3, Marks

Marks

Not this kind

The marks will be pretty easy math-wise. Let's get to it.

Chaos Daemons: Part 2, Ranged Weapons

Daemons are SOL for shooting

Going to divide this section up into the Ranged Weapons list and the Psychic Powers/Rewards. There are very few ranged weapons that can be taken on anyone but Soul Grinders. How few? None on troops. None. Unless you randomly roll for one on rewards or take a psychic power. Meaning your troops who want to shoot will have to watch as your opponents get Deny The Witch rolls every time.

Chaos Daemons: Part 1, Addendum (Eternal Blade)

I forgot to do the Eternal Blade in the last one! Why would I forget such a sweet exalted reward? Because no AP. Goddamnit it's 30 points for an AP - weapon?? Whyyyyyyyyy???

Let't do a side-by-side comparison with the same MC wielding this or any Etherblade and Unarmed. He'll be fighting a MEQ Chapter Master. It's a swag challenge between two HQ's. Only changes between MEQ and MEQ Chapter Master are WS 6 W 3 I 5 (doesn't matter with any MC in this book besides the goddawful Kairos) and A 3. S, T, Ld are all pretty much the same (ATSKNF means Fear doesn't do diddley against them womp womp).

So, which MC? We can do Bloodthirster but that's kinda overkill, let's do the closest points cost MC we can get: Keeper of Secrets

Unarmed
WS 9 v. 6
S 6 v. T 4
AP 2 so Iron Halo 4++ save
6 attacks

We get, on average, 1.67 wounds. Not factoring in Hammer of Wrath or Charging and rending doesn't matter since all attacks are AP 2 'cause MC. So, unarmed the chance of any attack causing a wound is ~27%. With this number we can calculate that you have a ~20% chance of causing 3 or more wounds unarmed.

[Math for that: (20*(.27)^3*(.73)^3) + (15*(.27)^4*(.73)^2) + (6*(.27)^5*(.73)^1) + ((.27)^6*(.73)^0), the integers are the number of combos of that number of wounds and misses. Ex: three attacks wound, 3 do not. The attacks that wound are 1st, 2nd and 4th and 3rd, 5th and 6th do not. That's 1 combo for 3 wounds 3 do not. That's why in the last one you see only .27^6. There's only 1 combo where all 6 wound. A .03% chance for that]

Etherblade
WS 9 v. 6
S 6 v. T 4
AP 2
6 Attacks, Master-crafted

You can now expect 1.75 wounds. Better but not by much. It'd be a little too complicated to try and factor master-crafted in to figure out your chance of killing but suffice it to say it'll be better than 20%.

Greater Etherblade

WS 9 v. 6
S 7 v. T 4
AP 2
6 Attacks, Master-crafted

Same as above. The only difference is the strength bonus which won't matter against this unit.


Eternal Blade
D3 averages to +2 so we'll add two to all relevant numbers:

WS 10 v. 6
S 7 v. T 4
AP 2, (Smash) <- on MC's only does the AP of a weapon not matter, if you took Eternal Blade on a Herald prepare to be disappointed with how many of your attacks are saved
8 Attacks

You can now expect ~2.2 wounds. This nets you about the same result as Etherblade and Greater Etherblade. You have a 37% chance to kill outright.

So, in the end, you've doubled your chances of an outright kill in 1 round for 30 points on a MEQ HQ. Your average wounds go from 1.67 to 2.2 meaning you're going from 51% likely to score 2+ wounds to being 68% likely to score 2+ wounds. For 30 points it just doesn't seem worth it to me. On a Herald, who does not have smash, it is not worth it. Period. Take all the wound totals above and reduce them by ~20% and that's Herald with Eternal Blade. On a Bloodthirster you do get a bonus attack from having two specialist weapons but your WS and I are already unapproachable by all but a select few units (roughly a baker's dozen between all other codexes) so the D3 bonus there is meaningless. Same with other MC's, your WS and I are so high that very little in the game will surpass you. Go with the cheaper options. You're not getting enough bang for the buck.

Chaos Daemons: Part 1, Melee Weapons

This post is going to be analysis of weapons. Standalone, the weapons are meaningless: you must have something to compare to. Therefore I'll use two comparisons; Marine Equivalent, MEQ, which is the stat-line of an individual space marine and Filthy Xeno. Filthy Xeno is a made up unit that is supposed to be representative of Eldar, Dark Eldar, Tau, Orks and Imperial Guard. Therefore the Filthy Xeno or FX stat-line is:

WS	BS	S	T	W	I	A	Ld	Sv
3	3	3	3	1	3	1	7	5+

Now obviously this stat-line is different from all of the above races but it's meant to be the average of the above. A way of letting us factor how our weapons will work against each army's troops without having to do 5 separate calculations. Remember: FX & MEQ, save some time. I might also add Termie which is just marine stat-line except the saves are 2+/5++ but then I'd have to add in Storm Shield termies who have a 3++ save and things get complicated. For now FX & MEQ are the standard by which we judge these weapons. Let's start.

One of my favorite 40k pics

Chaos Daemons: Part 0

Why Part 0? Because this will be an analysis of the rules before the army list: Daemonic Instability, Warlord traits and Warpstorm...and maybe a little of the Daemon rules themselves (though it'll be opinion and not math until we get to the specific units).

My name is Dallas. This blog is going to be dedicated to the best hobby: Warhammer 40k and the best part of the hobby: Math. Mostly. I'll throw in strategy and analyze non-math based items and abilities and try to develop a cost-benefit analysis for them. Hopefully this will be as entertaining for you the reader as it is for me.