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A lot of marine armies won't have Combat Tactics, thanks to the Chapter Tactics of many popular special characters. Without combat tactics, a power fist is basically a necessity to give you a chance against walkers/MCs.

Even without combat tactics, it does add a nice punch against a huge number of targets in the game. It's good at almost guaranteeing an extra wound vs. an MC/MEQ/TEQ-type squad, especially tough ones like plague marines. It insta-kills T4, which really helps against Oblits/Meganobz/Nobz. And it makes your squad that much better against vehicles.

Melta bombs are nice, but only 1 attack and only 6+ to hit against walkers hurts their effectiveness. Most non-walkers only have 10-11 rear armor, so the S8 power fist is good enough at penetrating, and you have 3 attacks on the charge (much better chance to hit than melta bombs).

VS AV12 WS4 walker

Melta bomb 1/6 30/36 1/2 or 6.9%

Power fist 1/2 2/6 1/2 or 15.9% (from 2 attacks)

but then a power fist does cost 5x as much


Automatically Appended Next Post:

should also note free Kraks (although glancing) could have an effect.

1/6 1/6 2/6 (weapon destroy or immobilised) or 1/108 or 8% for the other 9 attacking SM (assuming they get to attack)

Tri wrote:VS AV12 WS4 walker

Melta bomb 1/6 30/36 1/2 or 6.9%

Power fist 1/2 2/6 1/2 or 15.9% (from 2 attacks)

but then a power fist does cost 5x as much

Thanks Tri thats a good place to start. Let me add these numbers to this.

Chance to not get sweeping advanced after choosing to fail a leadership test from an I4 walker. 42%

Chance to not get sweeping advanced from an I3 walker 58%

Chance to not get sweeping advanced by an I2 walker 72%

Chance of a single marine meltagun carried by the unit running away to at least immobilize the dreadnought (and thus be able to regroup at the start of the next turn) 14%

Feel free to add the rest of your armies shooting to that last tally in order to save a valuable space marine unit.

For example... if you had one multi-melta that would have a close range shot on the walker, like say a speeder or your own dreadnought, then the total chance for you to successfully fall back from a combat and kill or immobilize the pursuing walker is 15.5% Almost exactly your chance of killing an armor 12 dreadnought with a power fist. If there is any other anti-tank weapon nearby, that number goes up. You don't need a fist for walker protection. You need one if you want to win some close combats.

4/6 30/36 4/6 or 37%

Melta gun kill the above ...


but point taken.
I'm all for people taking power fists if they're going to use them, its just I've seen several players just giving every unit a power fist just in case. Unless you're planning on using the unit in CC (not just as a precaution against them being in CC) I don't think Power Fist are needed.

But that's just my view.

Tri wrote:

Canonness Rory wrote:Imagine your 200 point tactical squad gets charged by a T7 Carnifex, T8 Wraithlord or C'tan, an AV10 Sentinel or an AV11 Killa kan, or an AV12 Dreadnought.

That is a tactical squad that is doomed.

Now Imagine your 215 point tactical squad with powerfist instead of power sword gets charged by those things.

That is a tactical squad that is going to be shooting again in a turn or 2.

The first tactical squad lose 2-3 men and falls back and melta guns the T7 Carnifex, T8 Wraithlord or C'tan, an AV10 Sentinel or an AV11 Killa kan, or an AV12 Dreadnought along with the rest of the army

The second tactical also lose 2-3 men but also get a slim chance at returning some damage....
T7 Carnifex takes a wound you still lose combat.
T8 Wraithlord or C'tan takes a wound you still lose combat.
AV10 Sentinel you smash into it and destroy a weapon ... you still lose combat
AV11 Killa kan you smash into it and destroy a weapon ... you still lose combat
AV12 Dreadnought you smash into it and stun it (extra armour) ... you still lose combat

No matter how good a power fist is you still need to roll to hit (1/2 average) roll at least a 4+ (ok 3+ for the sentinel) and then in the case of the vehicles actually cause some damage worth talking about (on a pen 4+)

And what happens if you take a special character, so you dont have combat tactics, like most tourney lists do?

I play Crimson Fists, so the power fists I use are for fluff as much as playability. I find them really useful, and have them on every squad except my seldom seen devastator squad. Marines are geared for close range combat, so having some hand to hand punch is really useful.

I use PW's in my tac squads and PF's on my bike squads. The former I mainly use for infantry killing and try to keep out of CC. The Latter are more for AV popping, and the fist helps when even my 2 TL meltas fail to destroy the vehicle; Usually the target gets immob'd from shooting/krak grenades and the auto hits from the fist on rear armour will get the job done.

With my combat squads in rhinos, I think I have actually had them assaulted all of 1 time in competitive play.

You just gotta be smart about which units you get close to. For example, don't try and rapid fire someones uninjured seer biker council.


Here's a question, what unit can't you torrent down that a powerfist will actually help against?

Timmah wrote:With my combat squads in rhinos, I think I have actually had them assaulted all of 1 time in competitive play.

You just gotta be smart about which units you get close to. For example, don't try and rapid fire someones uninjured seer biker council.


Here's a question, what unit can't you torrent down that a powerfist will actually help against?

What do you mean by torrent down? Shoot to death/uselessness? A power fist attack is about 11x as effective at taking down Plague Marines as a bolter shot. About 15x as effective against Meganobz.

Canonness Rory wrote:And what happens if you take a special character, so you dont have combat tactics, like most tourney lists do?

Like about 10 of us have said in the thread. If you have "chapter tactics" buy power fists. If you don't, don't.

Shep wrote:

Canonness Rory wrote:And what happens if you take a special character, so you dont have combat tactics, like most tourney lists do?

Like about 10 of us have said in the thread. If you have "chapter tactics" buy power fists. If you don't, don't.

That's more or less exactly my point of view.

Gully Foyle wrote:

What do you mean by torrent down? Shoot to death/uselessness? A power fist attack is about 11x as effective at taking down Plague Marines as a bolter shot. About 15x as effective against Meganobz.

Sorry, let me clarify.

What units are you going to get out of your rhino and shoot at? Which units are actually going to survive when you do this? And which of these units will proceed to charge you and make your powerfist actually useful?

I cannot really think of many, any units that you are going to get out and fire at, they survive your rapid fire, and then charge you. Most of the power units, you aren't going to want to attempt to torrent down until they are weak or if you want to sacrifice a unit. And even then a power fist isn't going to help you.


Honestly 25 points x2-4 is a huge waste of points and can be used for much more useful things that will actually come into play.