Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I love reading posts which delve into efficiencies and probabilities, sadly i've not that sort of brain.

My Deathwing army has a question for you...
Dreadnoughts.. what is typically more survivable out of 3x normal dread or 2x Venerable dread with extra armour?

I often run 3 basic dreads with heavy flamers and they do well so long as i have them work the terrain effectively. For the same price (roughly) I could drop one and upgrade the other two with venerable, extra armour and lascannons. This is very often the suggestion I get but something instinctively tells me that 3 basic willlast longer. Am I on the money or sadly mistaken?
Incidentally the rest of the army features 4 DW squads with A-Cannons and Belial

If anyone has a chance to give this some thought it'd be hugely appreciated.

Not an all inclusive answer, but it should give you some food for though.

On a Glance, the Venerable will Blow up 1 out 36, (1/6*1/6) chances of rolling a 6 two times in a row. So, against nothing but necrons, you would need 72 shots to kill 2 Venerable dreads.

On a glance on a non venerable, the dreadnought will blow up 1 out of 6 times. So, 18 glances would kill 3 dreadnoughts.

No math to back it up, but in my experience, the Venerables are much more survivable. One cannot depend on AV 12 to resist much in the way of anti-tank, so you have to default to an increased chance to decrease the almost-inevitable damage to something relatively harmless.

I'd say the math would consist of figuring out how a conditional reroll (one that you choose the use of) changes survivability. What that math would be, I can't say.

On a glance, chance to actually blow up.

Dread: 17%.
Venerable: 2.8%

On a pen, chance to actually blow up.

Dread: 50%
Venerable: 25%

So the Venerable is more than twice as resilient for 1.5 times the price, may as well go venerable.

I didn't know DA could take more than one.

It goes like this. In order to blow it up on a pen you have to roll a 4+ twice. So (CHANCE of 4+) * (CHANCE of 4+) == (0.5) * (0.5) == 0.25.

It sounds stupid but that's how it goes.

Actually, my math wasn't 100% right, because it didn't account for the chances of getting 2 immobilized results and what not. I don't know how this would affect the results, certianly lower the number from 72, but bear in mind that it would also lower the non-ven from 18. So, I would still say the ven would be more survivable.

Sheesh, not looking good for the poor regular dread is it? I was half expecting the 2 venerables to prove competitive in terms of survivability, surprised that its so clear. Hurts to spend around 180 on a mere dreadnought but it's difficult to juggle points with the deathwing.
Hmm, 2 venerables are that much more survivable, and prolly give me more options with the lascannons. Sadly that means less scoring units though.
Never fails to surprise me what happens when one actually works out the numbers.

If you count immobolize to be a re-roll it goes like this.

Glance chance to immobolize or blow up.
Dread: 33%
Venerable: 11%

Pen chance to immobolize or blow up.
Dread: 66%
Venerable: 44%

The Venerable is still at least 1.5 times as resilient.

In your case your better of with the ven-lascannon dreads:

1: because you need the extra anti-tank with long range fire..
2: because the basic assaultcannon- DA dreadnoughts are more expensive than the basic space marine dreadnoughts.. but their upgrades/weapons are cheaper so the become about the same cost then the normal space marine dreadnoughts.
3: the will become better fire magnets keeping your terminators safer...

yeah dreads can soak up S8 reasonably enough but S9 or higher will do them in quickly w/o smoke or terrain.

However, if we also take into account that you have 3 dreads vs 2 V. dreads the number of things shooting at each of individual regular dreads goes down. So they will be more effective in certain situations because units cannot split fire against them. So in cases where an army is made up of mostly Dev squads with 4 heavy weapons ( or other highly concentrated firepower to unit ratio) they will become more survivable based on numbers, not to mention the stun, immobilize and weapon destroyed results that affect your dread even if it survives will only reduce 1/3 of the groups effectiveness instead of 1/2. Basically the wear and tear of every turn will be less on your surviving dreads than if you had less targets. So there are situations where normal dreads in larger groups will be more effective, but in straight up survivability obviously 1 V. Dread is better than 1 Dread.

Really its going to come down to many different factors, but in your case as others mentioned above you may want to go tank hunting with two tooled up V. Dreads.

Since we are talking about the survivability of 3 normal vs 2 venerable I think you have to go a bit deeper than just the percentage of time the dreads will survive hits. At the very least you need to include the to hit and penetrate chances for a varying number of dreads.

I think to get a result that is more realistic for game play you would have to make some assumptions about how many squads would be shooting at said dreads per turn and using what armament. Maybe at the end of this you would find that the squads can kill a regular dread every two turns on average and a venerable dred every 3 turns. so on average they have the same survivability in a 6 turn game. I'm not saying this is the case, I'm just saying the math is not as straightforward as it is being made out to be.

I would suggest to define a role for your Dreads first and then go from there. With Pods you need to factor in thouse costs too. Few sniper Dreads can use terrain easier etc..

Then you have to figure in offensive potential. 3 Dreads shoot more, thus the opponent might have less left to shoot back. Dont forget that 40k basicly is a race for who kills the other guy faster, where resilience and offensive potential cant be judged isolated.

Finally statistically units get more reliable, the more dice you roll, as mediocre results get more common. As a general direction the slogen "Less toys, more boys" is good advice in most cases.

But well, define what you expect from your Dreads and we can get more specific.

less toys more boys is exactly the thing i was going for with my original design. So many people have suggested the swap to Venerable though that I figured it was time to look into it a little more closely.

In terms of the army, I run 4 sqads of deathwing kitted for shooting with Assault cannon. Though they hold their own in assault against regular troops its the dedicated assault troops that have caused my terminators the most grief over the years. That being the case I decided to try the dreads to partially act as fire magnets so the terminators could have less ap2 aimed their way, and also as speed bumps. When the nasty assault stuff gets close they walk forward with Belial, flamer and assault things to keep them away from my terminators.

So thats how the army design usually works, the Dreads have to be able to draw fire from a gunline/shooty enemy (I find that the dreads give me more options than an extra DW squad and a character), they also have to be able to hold up nasty CC units and keep them away from my terminators as long as possible.

With the assault cannons and their ability to move they have effectively 30 inch range... There's always something farther away though isn't there!

Hmm, I'm kind of on the fence again, survivability is most important to me... they are essentially there to be a speed bump or a distraction. I know thats a lot of points for the purpose but hey, dreads are easily the cheapest thing in the Deathwing army

The problem with the dreads is that venerable provides no protection from shaken.

Shaking two Av12 vehicles a turn is easy for pretty much any army.

Either type of Dread is essentially useless in the Deathwing list, unless you're drop podding and want heavy flamers (who the hell does that, with 50pt drop pods, I don't know).

It's my opinion that you'd be better off buying landraiders or terminators than Dreads.

Once again, totally agree. Problem when working out a DW army is that everything seems to cost about 250 points... but you gotta have Belial for 130 and therefore have some points left. I decided to try dreads thinking they were more useful than an extra character, then I decided a lonely dread was no good, how about multiples. 3 dreads and 4 squads makes for 7 move and fire assault cannons which have seen me do fairly well for a while, surprising considering the amount of broken lists that feature round here. Sadly all this maths is making me wonder about the survivability of any dreads.

Hmm, is 1 Landraider more resilient then 2 dreads? probably yes but I seem to be making a lot of erroneous assumptions of late.

Depends what's shooting it. To a Strength 8 shot, it's about as resilient as 1 venerable dread 1/36 being destroyed v 1/36 being destroyed. But to a strength 9 shot, the chances of it being destroyed are higher than a venerable dread.

Whoa, I gotta get me to some kind of maths class. Am I right in that you're suggesting that against strength 8 or above shooting, a venerable dread is as resilient or more so than a Landraider? If so, I would have never guessed. Surely a lot more shots have to be fired at a Landraider to get through its armour. I'm confused, my humble apologies if I'm slow on the uptake.

1 lascannon hitting a landraider results in 1/6 of a glancing hit and 1/6 of a penetrating hit.

1/6 * 1/6 chance of destruction -> 1/36 glancing possibility of death

1/6 pen * 1/2 chance of destruction -> 1/12 pen possibility of death

So with one lascannon hit you get 4/36 or 1/9th kills.

Lascannon score vs. landraider: 1/9

--------------------

1 Lascannon hitting a venerable dread results in 1 glancing hit and 3 penetrating hits.

The glancing hit scores 1/6 hit * 1/36 or a 1/216 chance of death.

The penetrating hit scores 1/2 * 1/2 * 1/2 -> 1/8th chance of a death.

So a little more than 1/8 score for the venerable. He loses but only barely. His losing will go up more if you assume people reroll immobilizations.

-------------------------------

The real advantage to the raider comes in several places:
1) Much harder to shake a landraider and deny its lascannon shots.
2) Landraider can shoot a TL las at bs2 even when shaken (if it still has potms, and I am not forgetting)
3) Landraider can still transport troops 12" and let them assault after any result short of immobilized.

Dreadnoughts are going to be not shooting more 66% of the time it is hit by a lascannon. Landraiders are going to be not shooting 33% of the time they are hit by a lascannon.

Another huge disadvantage is of course that a S6 or S7 gun can hurt a dreadnought, and S4 can hurt it from the rear.

Now, if you make the venerable dread a TL las you're looking at something like 165 or 175 points, and you're into the zone of "i'll just put one hit a turn on it until it dies, since any time I hit it I'm denying it shots, pretty much".

At 60 or 70 points more the raider starts looking like a much, much better shooting platform.

Rockit (or any non-melta S8 gun) vs a venerable dread-
2/3 hits * 1/3 pen * 1/2 death * 1/2 death reroll = 1/18
2/3 hits * 1/6 glance * 1/6 death * 1/6 death reroll = 1/204
1/18+1/204=111/1836

111/1836 death (may need to be simplified, don't have a good calc on me)

Wow, this is tougher than I thought

Rockit vs land raider-
2/3 hit * 1/6 glance * 1/6 death = 1/54

34/1836 death

So, against a rockit, a Land Raider is a little over 3x more survivable than a dread.

Lascannon vs. venerable dread
2/3 hit * 1/2 pen * 1/2 death * 1/2 death reroll = 1/12
2/3 hit * 1/6 glance * 1/6 death * 1/6 death reroll = 1/204
1/12+1/204=3/34

81/918 chance of death

Lascannon vs land raider
2/3 hit * 1/6 pen * 1/2 death = 1/18
2/3 hit * 1/6 glance * 1/6 death = 1/54
1/18 + 1/54 = 2/27

68/918 chance of death

Against lascannon, land raider is only slightly more survivable than venerable dread.

Also, remeber this is not including imobilized and other stuff that are important in games. That took a while, so I'm not up for doing much analysis. Basic thing is that Land raider is good against relitively low strength stuff, but as the strength goes up, Land Raider becomes more vunerable, as it loses its main protection against weapons, while venerable dread does not give up that much, as it has a special rule to save it (like holo-fields/SMF )

One thing I forgot to mention, woops:

In an obscured scenario, in the current rules, the Venerable dread is going to gain a lot of resilience vs. penetrating hits (since he is way, way more resistant to glancing hits than he is to penetrating hits, due to the nature of his holofield like ability).

Here's hoping the cover save rule happens in 5th ed so those stupid abilities get the treatment they deserve

Can't thank you guys enough for going to the effort you have, this thread has been pretty enlightening.

So, still not sure where I'm leaning with regard to what to choose, though the ven dreads are so expensive that the versatility of the Landraider is looking quite appealing. As far as practicalities I may well have to take a dread sooner or later due to the nature of Deathwing armies. (any time you have less than 215 points left to spend you've pretty much only got the dread left as a choice) The purist Deathwing route is not an easy path to take, but I've learned a hell of a lot tonight.