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.

So I ran some numbers on pathfinders, and with the new rending rules for sniper rifles they seem kind of amazing. Also, it seems like a squad of 10 pathfinders kind of destroys nidzilla, or Wraithlord spam

without further ado, here are the numbers (they are for nidzilla and I ignored cover saves)

pathfinders + doom + guide = so dead...

1 pathfinder w/o doom or guide vs 2+ armour:
1/3*1/2 + 1/3*1/6 + 1/3 * 1/18 = .241 chance to wound (0.130 in 4+ cover)

w/ 10 pathfinders:
6% of 0 wound
20% of 1 wounds
28% of 2 wounds
24% of 3 wounds
20% of 4 wounds or more


1 pathfinder w/ doom w/o guide vs 2+ armour:
1/3*3/4 + 1/3*1/4 + 1/3 * 5/9 * 1/6 = .364 chance to wound (0.198 in 4+ cover)

w/ 10 pathfinders:
1% of 0 wounds
6 % of 1 wound
16% of 2 wounds
24% of 3 wounds
52% of 4 wounds or more


1 pathfinder w/ doom and guide vs 2+ armour:
4/9*3/4 + 4/9 * 1/4 + 4/9 * 5/9 * 1/6 = .486 chance to wound (.263 w/ 4+ cover)

w/ 10 pathfinders:
0% of 0 wounds
1% of 1 wounds
5% of 2 wounds
13% of 3 wounds
81% of 4 wounds or more


1 pathfinder w/ guide vs 2+ armour
4/9*1/2 + 4/9*1/6 + 4/9 * 1/18 = 0.321 chance to wound (0.173 in 4+ cover)

w/ 10 pathfinders:
2% of 0 wounds
10% of 1 wounds
21 % of 2 wounds
26% of 3 wounds
41% of 4 wounds or more


1 pathfinder w/o doom or guide vs 3+ armour:
1/3*1/2 + 1/3*1/6 + 1/3 * 1/9 = .259 chance to wound (0.148 in 4+ cover)

w/ 10 pathfinders:
5% of 0 wounds
17% of 1 wounds
27% of 2 wounds
26% of 3 wounds
25% of 4 wounds or more

1 pathfinder w/ doom w/o guide vs 3+ armour:
1/3*3/4 + 1/3*1/4 + 1/3 * 5/9 * 1/3 = .423 chance to wound (0.230 in 4+ cover)

w/ 10 pathfinders:
0% of 0 wounds
3% of 1 wound
10% of 2 wounds
19% of 3 wounds
78% of 4 wounds or more

1 pathfinder w/ doom and guide vs 3+ armour:
4/9*3/4 + 4/9 * 1/4 + 4/9 * 5/9 * 1/3 = .527 chance to wound (0.304 w/ 4+ cover)

0% of 0 wounds
1% of 1 wound
3% of 2 wounds
9% of 3 wounds
88% of 4 wounds or more (70% of 5 wounds or more)

1 pathfinder w/ guide vs 3+ armour
4/9*1/2 + 4/9*1/6 + 4/9 * 1/9 = 0.346 chance to wound (0.198 in 4+ cover)

w/ 10 pathfinders
1% of 0 wounds
8% of 1 wound
18% of 2 wounds
25% of 3 wounds
48% of 4 wounds or more

Granted the 10 man probability numbers don't take cover saves into account, but there have to be at least a few MCs out there that aren't going to get cover saves... or even if they do get cover saves guide+doom and they are severely out of luck. doom+guide vs wraithlord in cover will still be killing him near 60% of the time in one volley (or 96% of the time not in cover...)

Yep. Pathfinders are powerful.

Remember assaults and flamers (both prevalent in 5E) make you go POOF.

Do nids have flamers (I dont remember seeing any in their codex)

No, but nids have assaults and pathfinders can only do so much against little nids. Rippers with leaping make pathfinders go away on turn 3 at the latest.

Have one full squad of pathfinds tucked away somewhere and pick off easy targets and pinning things

Anyone say lictor?

BTW, I am less than impessed with pathfinders in 5th, not because of their shooting which is better but because of the amount of cover that my opponents are getting.

Darrian13 wrote:Anyone say lictor?

BTW, I am less than impessed with pathfinders in 5th, not because of their shooting which is better but because of the amount of cover that my opponents are getting.

You can torrent with pathfinders alot better than the other Eldar shooting units that are ground pounders, and they are far more survivable.

With guide and doom, well...it isn't fun being on the other end of that.

Lictors aren't really scary due to rending Nerf. Toss in a farseer supporting the rangers, and CC will be close if the lictor doesn't just die. Then what, a LD9 test?

Or of course, if it's a double ranger/reaper army, there's probably no place you can deep strike the lictor in the first place.

Are you saying that you think a squad of pathfinders will beat a lictor in close combat? Close? Really?

If they have a farseer attached?

Lictor should get 3-4 hits and wound at least 3 times.

Rangers save 1.

8 rangers attack, 4 hit, 1 wound. Maybe the lictor saves it, maybe not.

Farseer attacks, he should get 1 hit and probably 1 wound.
Again, maybe he saves it maybe not.

If the Lictor does well and the rangers/farseer whiff it, he could win by a maximum of 4. Odds are he'll kill 2 rangers and take a wound in return. That's one LD9 test.

If there are harlies around (and there usually are, in a reaper/ranger foot list) they'll come and kill him next turn.

If not, eventually the Lictor will die.

You don't think Lictors are actually good in CC, do you?

If the ranger unit is fortuned, the Lictor stands a good chance of losing the first round. Rending nerf hurts.

Two Lictors, would probably win without breaking a sweat.

A single Lictor? IMO they are support units only, and should not be committed to close combat until the game is won.

Much rather have a 2+ save than a 5+.

No, I mean a lictor vs. a squad of pathfinders. Not a lictor vs. your whole army. 80 points of lictor vs. 1 squad of pathfinders.

Also, with the preferred enemy rule allowing rerolls to wound, rending is not quite as bad for the lictor. Even though he will probably only get one reroll per round due to his wounding on a 2+.

I don't see pathfinders without a farseer attached though. Shouldn't we be realistic?

We're already discounting the likelyhood of a lictor not being able to deep strike anywhere since everyone should know by now how to spread out to stop them from doing so (especially so with the way blast weapons work, that 2+ save isn't so hot if you get nailed on the whole squad with every shot because you are clustered).

On the face of it, in theoryhammer the Lictor should win.

You knew I knew that. I know you know everything I've said above.

Preferred Enemy is to hit. That's why I said "at least 3 wounds." Odds are he should do 4, but often does not.

Stelek wrote:I don't see pathfinders without a farseer attached though. Shouldn't we be realistic?

We're already discounting the likelyhood of a lictor not being able to deep strike anywhere since everyone should know by now how to spread out to stop them from doing so (especially so with the way blast weapons work, that 2+ save isn't so hot if you get nailed on the whole squad with every shot because you are clustered).

On the face of it, in theoryhammer the Lictor should win.

You knew I knew that. I know you know everything I've said above.

Well, if we're going to get all situational...

If you are spamming pathfinders, you'll have 6 squads. You can only have 2 farseers. So that's 4 pathfinder squads that won't have an attached character that will be easy prey for the lictor.

And to completely throw something different in, like you like to do, pathfinders are useless against an ork horde.

run those pf vs horde numbers again and explain how lictors deep strike vs 60 pathfinderes and why you want 60 pathfinders in any army...

I am at a loss to try to explain 60 pathfinders or the 1440 points that they would cost.

For a ard boyz or apocacrap mission, maybe?

I'd never run that many. 30 tops. Even that's stretching things.

I posted the list I would run in response to whitedragon, here:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/216023.page

I'd mix it up to include actual anti-tank with some guardians and run the reapers myself if I was going to do an army like this.

Not my cup of tea but alot of other people love it.

I see 5-6 man pathfinder squads being much more common where I'm at. They are easily lictor food.

You know I kind of want a Farseer led Altioc force now. hrm. I guess I should go out and buy 30 more Eldar Rangers.

I have 36 pathfinders and I am pretty sure that I will never use that many in one game. I was very happy with them in 4th, not so much in 5th.

Bring 36 to the ard boyz.

You'll win.

What?

I will if you will. Promise?

That would be odd to see, i want photos if this goes ahead.

No problem, right Stelek?

Sure. I don't own pathfinders anymore sadly (I gave them, and my Dark Reapers, away to a friend in need).

Sorry Squig_herder, I guess you wont be seeing photos of the pathfinder armies at Ard boy after all.

Hey fellas, noob01 here.

Would you guys agree that Rangers/Pathfinders are not a good choice when facing armies that dish out a liberal amount of pie-plates, like IG?

Do ALL templates negate the cover-save that make Pathfinders so tough?

Just curious.

Ummm pathfinders generally have a 2+ save against everything, including pie plates.

It's only template weapons (ie. flamers) that negate this save.

Whatever you do Mort, do not use your pathfinders against DA/BA whirlwind armies that use inferno rounds. That is some bad juju.

Stelek wrote:Ummm pathfinders generally have a 2+ save against everything, including pie plates.

It's only template weapons (ie. flamers) that negate this save.

Are the blast markers still counted as 'template' weapons? Or am I thinking of 'template' too literally?

I might be facing an IG player this next week, and folks here keep telling me that the cool Pathfinder 2+ save won't help me against blast markers. So I was wondering if they'd be less desirable in a game where the enemy can toss out a bunch of them.

If 'template' only refers to the flamer template (and abilities/powers that use it), and I still get the cover save vs. blast markers, then I feel like real noobsauce and will not be so chicken with the Pathfinders.

Thanks Stelek.


@Darrian - thanks for the advice. I do have a few DA and BA armies in the group I run with, so I will definitely keep that in mind!