Tau Empire: Part 4, HQ's (They're actually good now!)

Seeing the new Tau HQ's

The new Tau HQ's are awesome. They have awesome 12'' auras, cool gunline properties, extra equipment that can buff a large unit, they're good. Which is totally different from before where you wanted to limit your point exposure to the HQ's and you're no longer forced to take a battlesuit in each army (no more 1+ rules!).  Now you might even be interested to know that battlesuits can be more than just a few gun placements with a bodyguard: they can buff things (Helloooo Puretide Engram Neurochip)! Now, to be fair, they aren't necessarily amazing choices like you'd get in other armies (GK and Space Wolves come to mind) but they are definitely great to have and you wouldn't be a total doofus taking two Ethereals. So let's take a look at the changes.

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.

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 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