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but a GKGM is a good HQ so that really isn't a loss.


and Grey hunters certaintly won't be cutting down a GK squad anytime soon. the GKs have all around power weapons while the GHs have at most 2.

each wound the GKs cause will be a dead GH. the GHs will have to cause 3 wounds to kill a GK.

good points ... I only like the paladins as Mini Dreads ... point wise ... only because I personally don't want to build an army around them Mordrak I don't mind I don't know why but I love em! But to ramble a bit more Interceptors are my favorite troopers no doubt!

For an all comers list, it's Halberds hands down for PAGK. Being able to swing before most anything in the game and ignore armor saves is ridiculous. A Purifier squad just rapes any MEQ assault unit that isn't wearing a storm shield. My poor Khorne Berserker army is completely fethed.

I'd take a mix of Swords and Halbers on TAGK.

Grey Templar wrote:but a GKGM is a good HQ so that really isn't a loss.


and Grey hunters certaintly won't be cutting down a GK squad anytime soon. the GKs have all around power weapons while the GHs have at most 2.

each wound the GKs cause will be a dead GH. the GHs will have to cause 3 wounds to kill a GK.

GKs are the only marine army where I'm tempted to go with 2 HQs. 1 for the librarian, which is a solid powerful utility character. And 1 for the GM, which opens so many tactical options its insane to not at least consider running him.

Vanilla Marines should be running 2 hqs all the time IMHO. The first is to get the chapter tactics of your choice, and the second is for the amazing librarian. Null zone + power of choice. Null zone wins games, and a lot of the other powers are pretty good.

Griever, they have made a huge distinction between Purfiers and the other 3 types of PAGK. I cant really support Halberds for troop squads for example, as my post talks about, due to the high cost of Halberds. Purfiers, on the other hand, get more attacks with a better leadership, get a different CC power for when hammerhand is not appropriate, AND get discounted CC weapons. I will work on their math tomorrow, but like you say Halberds may be the way to go (though dont discount falchions!)

You actually want at least one hammer in each squad to be able to hurt vehicles and monsters better so wouldn't that change all the math here?

DevianID wrote:Vanilla Marines should be running 2 hqs all the time IMHO. The first is to get the chapter tactics of your choice, and the second is for the amazing librarian. Null zone + power of choice. Null zone wins games, and a lot of the other powers are pretty good.

Griever, they have made a huge distinction between Purfiers and the other 3 types of PAGK. I cant really support Halberds for troop squads for example, as my post talks about, due to the high cost of Halberds. Purfiers, on the other hand, get more attacks with a better leadership, get a different CC power for when hammerhand is not appropriate, AND get discounted CC weapons. I will work on their math tomorrow, but like you say Halberds may be the way to go (though dont discount falchions!)

I agree that the Libby is amazing, and should nearly always be used. Not agreeing with chapter tactics. IMHO most of them are crap, and you have to pay too much for them. Vulcan marines? You are already using the best weapons (flame template, melta, thunder hammers) in the game en mass, why do you need to make them even more powerful at a large premium? Pedro? Make my guys slightly less crappy in CC and sternguard score? I don't need to score with guys that cost more than grey knights when scouts and tacs do just fine, and need to be in the thick of it to get their value. Those are the ones people seem to think are the best. Me? I'll take the best "chapter tactics": the free kind. Combat tactics is VERY useful, and I never leave home without it.

Averiel: You don't actually need the hammer in every squad. GKs have MC hunting down just fine, with all the S5 (boosted bolters) S6 (HB razors) S7 (assault cannon boosted, or psycannon) and S8 (boosted auto cannons) to handle MCs, and if that fails can use more specialized units like space monkeys firing lasers, henchmen special weapons, or assassins. If that doesn't work, a force weapon could get lucky and ID, or you could hammerhand up to S5 and just kill it with PW attacks. As for vehicles, the thing that take out MCs also work on tanks. S5 against rear armor has a decent chance against 95 percent of the vehicles you face, and you can always use krak nades if you like.

Avariel, the math shown is to illustrate the merit of a single trooper. I flushed them out to a larger point value simply so I wasnt driven insane with fractions.

IE, the math still works as a 45 point falchion termie versus 1.125 other termies, with the sarge added in as his extra attack is part of the squad cost for GKSS. This in no way compares viable squads. Viable squads would have shooting upgrades and a mix of weapon upgrades if only to abuse wound allocation.

As for comparing the merits of chapter tactics Notabot, you made 1 mistake when judging the value of tactics. Namely, the idea of a force multiplier. So vulkan makes good weapons 33% better, thanks to MC and twin linking. So its like you had 33% more of those weapons. If your list normally runs meltaheavy, with 9 meltaguns, 6 normally hit, but with Vulkan 8 will hit. Say your list is 1850. That means for ~200 points, you go from 300 points per melta hit to 231 per melta hit. Without vulkan, those 2 extra melta hits would cost 600 points.

Now, its up to you to compare your actual list's firepower points per average hits versus the same lists firepower points per average hits with vulkan, but take it from me based off the math-hammery nature of the thread that vulkan is worth by far his ~200 points.

As to Pedro, again compare what you are getting, but forget about scoring sternguard for a moment. You get +1 attack for a huge number of units. You get a s10 ap1 infinite range ordance barrage attack. You get stubborn that negates devestating attacks like weaken resolve and fear the darkness' effect on your morale. And you get another PF with ws6, with a bs5 4 shot ap4 superstormbolter. With mathhammer, his value has been demonstrated to far exceed ~180 points in games ~1500 points or up.

So while your points are not 'wrong,' by valuing certian results (like actual hits with your weapons that matter) or attacks in cc over simply adding more bodies, we see that the multiplication effect of special characters makes them well worth their points value.

The 45 point Falchion termie will have a botherhood banner upping his base attacks up to 5, 6 on the charge.

Then pick force multipliers.

A) Brotherhood champion for rerolls to hit.
B) Hammerhand + Grandmaster rerolls 1s to wound + Rad Grenades -1T to target=wounds T4 on 2+ rerolling 1s
C) I10 from the librarian, and maybe another +1S from might of titan=I10 S6 with hammerhand

Wouldn't it be best to mix'n'match? Unless the player knows what they're going up against, they shouldn't necessarily put their whole squad with one kind of weapon. SM termies use TH/SS because it's the best option available, but I'd say mix it up. A halberd or two for the Eldar or high initiative 'Nids, a Daemonhammer or two for the tougher targets and/or heavier vehicles, a Falcion (I'd only suggest one pair, they're expensive and an extra two attacks for the squad by itself is plenty) and fill out the remainder with swords, allocating as many wounds as possible to those models, being the 'tanks' so to speak, or the least useful member of the squad. (who needs a halberd when fighting mono-nurgle daemons, right?)

For sure my Terminators will mostly have swordsm but any PA models will have something other then Swords.


Since i am running Purifiers i will probably have alot of halbards(that and my entire collection currently is Halbard armed) with some Falchions and Hammers spread out among the army.

That leaves me with a question: Since we're talking about terminator squads here, who gets the heavy weapons? Is it going to be the sword-wielders, the hammerbros or someone else? A terminator squad can be very capable in all things, and taking a single loss is going to be huge, so who gets the big guns in this? Hell, I'm wondering if Terminator troop squads should even be modified and optimized for close combat, since the only groups they'd need to 'bulk up' for should be shot at in the first place. I'm seriously considering leaving the close combat to interceptors and purgation squads at this rate. If there is a squad that 'should be' assaulted because its vulnerabilities lie in CC, then the plainclothes swordsmen can take care of it just fine. I'm happy taking psilencers and psycannons rather than shoving all of my points into CC when I can move AND fire heavy weapons. Terminators are looking more and more like rock-hard objective holders, and I'm happy with that.

So, on the subject of PAGK, is the sword worth it at all (aside from being the default)? Is there any reason NOT to spend the leftover points on upgrading their weapons? They're obviously going to be clunkier in firing heavy weapons, they should be left to their Storm Bolters and given the CC upgrades.

PAGK includes purifiers and SS, and there is a huge cost difference when it comes to halberds. They are much cheaper of an upgrade on purifiers than SS, while SS cost a lot less when they are equipped with a basic sword.

if you have points, always upgrade your PAGK.

the sword has no advantage aside from being cheap.


I personally don't mind paying more points to get mostly Halbards and a couple Falchions. it really doesn't make us any more expensive then last edition, especially with the psycannon price cut.


heck, purifiers are basically last ed PAGK with a drop in WS for being 1 point cheaper. give them halbards and they just increased their cost by 1 point.

Before I move on to Paladins and Purfiers, I would like to share my data regarding ven psy riflemen versus psyriflemen.

In this comparrison, I put equal points of psyriflemen versus ven psyriflemen.

My findings show that for initial shots, the ven dread gets .22 wep destroyed versus .2 that the regular dreads get. For destroyed results, the ven's get .3 results versus .13 on the regulars. For shaken/stunned, the regular dreads get .07 versus the vens .05. With a hood, the shaken/stunned go to .15 and .11.

End results for initial shots of 135 points of dreads versus venerables indicates that the venerables get .02+.17-.02, or .17 more results that reduce shooting back at them, which also happen to be destroyed results. Even with a hood, the total sticking results are .22+.3+.11 (.63) versus .2 +.13+.15 (.48).

In other words, for the initial volley not counting immobilized, the ven dreads stick with 30% more results that reduce incomming shots compared to the same point value of regular dreads.

Now, there is no real need to compare ven dreads to anything else like vendettas, as if you were going to take regular dreads you would also compare them to vendettas, meaning you can more or less factor out the vendetta and just compare the two types of dreads. Not 100% foolproof but close enough for army (building) work.

So the end result? If you were going to take 3 heavy psyriflemen, if you have 2 elite slots open you would be slightly better off taking 2 venerable psyriflemen.

Where does this not hold true? If the enemy can not engage your psyriflemen, venerable or not, then the bonus to defense is immaterial, thus you must only compare shear shot output. In this case, the heavy psyriflemen are better.

Final analysis? Because the psyriflemen are very effective shooting units, enemies that need to shut down incomming shots are likely to shoot at the psyriflemen if they are more dangerous than the incoming psycannons. Offhand, the purfiers are the closest comparison, being 140 points for 2 pcannons. If you assume a hybrid 6 shots from the purfiers, or 4 hits, then versus av 10/11/12 the psyriflemen are the 'deadlier' opponent point for point. That said, purfiers are a different unit type, meaning incoming shots interact with them differently.

AKA, purfiers in cover versus long fangs take less than half a casualty per missile launcher shot. It takes 8 misslelauncher HITS to really start reducing incoming firepower from purfiers in cover. 8 hits on a dread, on the other hand, result in .89 dead regular dreads without even factoring non-killing results. Thus, in the case of the most point efficient shooting units you will expect to see played other than dreads, the purfiers, I have shown that when in cover the enemy is better served by shooting their antitank at the dreads.

So wrapping everything up, because the enemy is best served shooting their antitank attacks at your dreads, you must expect your dreads to be coming under attack. WHEN UNDER ATTACK, the ven dread shoots better than regular dreads. Thus, as a general rule, ven dreads are better than regular dreads, as I have hopefully demonstrated, because the enemy SHOULD be shooting at the dreads whenever possible, and regular dreads only exceed ven dreads point for point when not getting shot at.

Hope that helps! I know I was surprised by the results, as I always figured that ven psyriflemen dreads were a waste compared to equal points of regular psyriflemen. But that is why I do this right!?!?

GK venerable dreds are not a "waste" because they bring so much more to the table than anyone else's venerable dreds. What they are, is an expensive unit in an army full of expensive units.

I come from an IG perspective, where, as Stalin put it best, "quantity has a quality all its own". The big guys like ven dreds are certainly good at their job, but put enough of the cheap guys on the board and you will probably find the same long term results. Will I lose 1 more dred than I would have if they were venerable? Maybe, but I'll take 3 of them for 405 versus 585 because it means I can still field an entire extra purifier unit with upgrades and points to spare.

3 regular dreds and a buffed up purifier unit vs just 3 venerable dreds is the way I look at at that math.

Plus you aren't taken into account the slot they use, which happens to be the most competitive in the codex. Elite choices are limited and valuable. If I can get the same effect out of a unit, for less points, in a less competitive slot, that seems like something of a no brainer to me.

Bruteboss, I dont know if you read the entire thing. Either that, or some points need to be clarified. I answered all of your questions already in any event.

First, in refrence to them being a 'waste,' i never said that and whats more proved that the ven dreads are better than regular riflemen dreads. The words 'waste' are in the very last sentence, where I said that my initial opinion was changed.

Second, quantity versus quality. In my post, I state that the quantity versus quality is negated because a smart player will kill dreads first with their anti-tank attacks. Thus, 2 quality dreads are as hard to kill as 6 quantity dreads. So here is an example where quantity is proven to be vastly inferior to quality.

Next, its not 3 vens for 585 versus 3 regular for 405. It is 2 vens for 390 versus 3 regular for 405. As I said, if you have 2 elite slots, then you should trade your 3 regular dreads in for 2 elite dreads. You save points, you do more damage with 2 elites than 3 regular under fire, and you give up less kill points.

So as a final wrap up, you say "If I can get the same effect out of a unit, for less points, in a less competitive slot, that seems like something of a no brainer to me."

However, reg dreads are proven to give LESS effect, for MORE points, with one MORE total slot. Basically almost exactly the opposite of what you said you though was bad about them other than being elite.

As my initial post on the subject stated, the ven dreads are better buys than regular dreads unless you have 0 elite slots open. And in the case you have 0 elite slots open, you are already spending hundreds and hundreds of points on 3 assassians/purfiers/paladins/techmarines, so you probably have either crappy troops or no dreads anyway with all those elites filled up.

My apologies if I misinterpreted your results Devian. But the part I took away from your post was that, overall, venerable dreds are about 30% more resilient than regular dreds. They also happen to cost exactly 30% more. Hence my point of trading power for cost efficiency. My note on "waste" was more or less agreeing with you; that venerable dreds are powerful, and the thing holding them back is a high point cost (and taking up an elite slot).

Your numbers can be a little hard to read, and it would help if you converted to simple % values for easy reading. For example, its hard to notice in your post the fact that venerable dreds are also 9% better at shooting than regular ones. Something I failed to take into account in my last post. But again, is 9% better worth a 30% increase in cost?

Looking at exactly equal point values for unit comparison is probably a fair way to run the numbers, but not really the way the game runs. More likely, that venerable dred will have to compare to its equivalent points values across the entire army list. Hence the idea of buying a dred and 60 points more of something else.
2 venerable dreds, which is your example, will buy me a strike squad with psycannon, along with the 2 regular dreds. That is not an insignificant difference and something you need to account for.

What I have learned, is that if I ever have an elite slot free, it is a good idea to upgrade a regular dred into a venerable one. But I will still be starting out with the assumption of using regular dreds as a base line and working from there as I build my list.

Yeah, the data is hard to follow.

The results are that, with 135 points of regular dreads versus 135 points of venerable dreads, the venerable dreads shoot 30% better than the regular dreads when under fire.

So when the points are equal, the regular dreads get more shots that hit up front. That said, the venerable dreads are so much more survivable, that they will survive longer and thus get 30% more shots total in the end. This is 30% more offensive power. Defensive power I estimate to be at around 100% more, point for point.

Now, if no one is shooting at your dreads, then the venerable rule's defense does not give you more shots. Which is why I had to figure out if the enemy should be shooting at the dreads or not. The answer is, the enemy should absolutely be shooting at your regular dreads instead of your other shooting units whenever possible--the dreads are just that good.

So have we worked out whats best for paladins yet? Right not I'm torn between halberds and falchions.

I would say that palidins are best off diversified so you can do wound allocation.

i'll make up a diversified 10 man squad up and get back to you.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
10 Paladins
Apothecary
Paladin with Psycannon
Paladin with Psycannon and Halberd
Paladin with Psycannon and Deamonhammer
Paladin with Psycannon and Pair of Falchions
Paladin with Halbard
Paladin with Deamonhammer
Paladin with Pair of Falchions
Paladin with Brotherhood Banner
Paladin with Warding Stave

total = 760 points

add in master crafting to taste.

the Apothecary could also take a CCW if wanted.

Well I'm probably at least going to have a warding staff and a hammer in the unit, then halberds, but each of the models will be different one with psycannon, one apothecary and one normal guy. So they will already be diverse enough.

Thats my gut instinct anyway, it could be that falchions are better, but that +2I is too nice to pass up.

Edit: the apothecary gets to keep his weapons, its the storm bolter he loses.

Sorry, I ran the numbers last night and forgot to post them.

Paladins are unique thanks to multiple wounds and better ws. As such, things that kill regular termies at s7 or less only wound a paladin, and with the better weaponskill your attacks translate to hits much easier.

In the rubric used for regular termies, one thing discovered is that regular termies with falchions only get on par with lclaws if they get the charge with hammerhand, simply because the lclaws are better at wounding than hammerhand, so the lclaws massacre the termies quite often.

With paladins, however, you have about 3.5 paladins to every 5.25 lclaw termies. The lclaw termies deal about 6 wounds total to the 3.5 paladins, which means that with decent saves you only lost 2 paladins as opposed to 4 regular gk termies. So the lclaws have a harder time wiping the palies out compared to regular gktermies.

What that means is that the halberds are not as necessary to reduce incoming attacks, because with 2 wounds per the paladins already do a good job at saying alive. HOWEVER, versus the dreaded THSS termies, you really really need to kill them before they swing and ID everything, so here the falchions are really important.

On paladins another thing to consider is the nemesis warding stave. On PAGK the warding stave costs as much as another model, but on termies only costs half as much. On paladins the warding stave is less than half of another model. The end result is that 1 warding stave costs as much as 2 THSS termies. Now while the warding stave model has twice as good a save as the THSS termies, the termies have double the attacks and double the wounds thanks to instant death. In a squad, this means that the THSS termies are likely to force a save on every model and wrap back around to the warding stave. So while a warding stave is good for 1 incomming pfist wound, it loses luster when hit with lots of pfist wounds. So not a bad buy, but against THSS termies it wont save your squad.

Prelim results? Falchions on Paladins pretty much all the way, with one caveat. You really want to abuse wound allocation with a unit like paladins, which means that you are going to want to spread your cc upgrades around.

Example Paladin squad:
5 paladins, 2 psycannons, 2 falchions, 1 hammer. Cost 325.
Pally 1 has hammer
Pally 2 has pcannon and sword
Pally 3 has pcannon and falchion
Pally 4 has falchion
Pally 5 has sword

This squad of 5, thanks to wound allocation, has the advantage on 8 LClaw termies when neither charge but the pallies have hammerhand. This is because the pallies should only lose 1, maybe 2 models to the 8 lclaws, whereas the pallies kill over half of the Lclaws. Sure, the pallies take more wounds total and may lose combat, but they survive with more models in the end. They also have 2 psycannons which dont really contribute to the combat but do cost as much as a lclaw termie.

Now the same squad of pallies, when confronted with 8 THSS termies gets its ass handed to it. Instant death effectively bypasses wound allocation and multiple wounds, and with that 3++ save you simply dont deal enough damage.

Final thoughts? There is not enough reason to put halberds on paladins. The halberds are good at hitting the enemy before they swing, but unless paladins are getting hit by s8 fist type weapons they really dont care. Since fists swing at init 1, who cares about init 6 halberds?

Now that both paladins and regular GKTermies have been analyzed, we can break down GKtermies versus paladins.

First, with weapons other than falchions, in CC regular GK termies get a negligible amount of hits per point more than pallies versus ws4. With falchions pallies and termies get the same number of hits point for point.

Second, pallies get about 50% more wounds total, but about 25% less wounds total when hit with instant death.

Third, pallies get pcannon shots at roughly 40 points per shot. Regular termies get pcannon shots at roughly 56 points per shot. So pallies get 40% more pcannon shots.

Final breakdown is this. Against anything that does not cause instant death, Pallies are the clear winners. Against instant death, pallies still shoot better than regular GKtermies. Pallies, however, are not troops by default.

When it comes to GK deathstars stomping GK deathstars it's all about the HQ

10 Pallies+ librarian

Warding staff
MC Warding staff
Sword
MC sword
falchions
MC falchion/falchions
falchions MC storm bolter
MC falchion/falchions, MC storm bolter
Hammer
Banner
Librarian

Fully diversified.

All of that is under the assumption that MC can only be taken once or twice per pair (if once is illegal or twice is illegal) of falchions, if MC can be taken both once or twice then the 2 swords can be replaced with 2 more diversified falchion options

Librarian is going to up everybody to I10
Hammerhand + Might of Titan=S6, or Might of Titan+force weapon=S5
40 attacks at I10 all either S5 force weapon activated or S6, 20 hits
At S6 that's 16.6 wounds if the other squad is single wound, or not well diversified.
At S5 that's 13.3 force weapon wounds on a fully diversified 2 wound squad.

If the other side doesn't have a librarian they don't have a hood.
In a paladin v paladin smack down supporting HQ is more important than small variations on gear.

Well to simplify - I would like to see 5 comparisons.

A unit of 10 MoS terminators. (3 w 2 LC, 2 w Reaper and Chainfist, 5 w combibolter and PW.)
A unit of 30 Ork Shoota Boyz
A unit of 15 Ork Lootas.
A unit of 10 sternguard
A unit of 10 deathcompany

This gives a comparison against quality +1 I HTH. A hoard unit. A shooty unit. While it is not perfect, it should give a good indicator of effectiveness both in HTH and standing up to the firepower.

The problem with GK is I am going to have a limited number of units, so I need an all-around effective unit build. Say 3 x halberds and 2 hammers w 5 swords. I am not going to be able to field a rock/paper/scissors army with a hammernator unit, a halberd unit etc. I need to be able to position all to be capable of standing alone.

Likewise how about adding in the bonus to weapon S. It seems pretty minor but 16 S5 and 4/8 S8 shots is pretty nasty compared to 16 S4 and 4/8 S7 shots. For instance take you shooting at orks option and we go from about 8 wounds to 11 wounds when firing at orks so that no matter who charges, we are talking about 8 orks charging versus 14 orks charging.

shooting won't be any different for the weapon loadout on the terminators. they will all have the same survivability regardless of CCW and it becomes a cost game.



as to the right ratios of the different CCWs,

i think you want at least 1 deamonhammer per unit. and possably 1 or 2 Falchion dudes.

as to the rest i really don't know. Halbards: kill the enemy first. Swords: survive enemy blows.

I think the choice between swords or halberds is totally meta dependent. If you play against a bunch of PA MEQs, you're almost certain to want halberds. If you're playing against a bunch of TA MEQs, you probably want swords.

GK v GK matchups universally favor Swords because whoever gets charged will be I1 due to Psyk-Out grenades, so Swords are more favorable as the defensive bonus should actually do something, as opposed to Halberds which will do nothing until after the 1st round of combat.

but the swords only provide a bonus IF you already have an invuln.


so they do nothing defensivly for any PAGKs(heros with iron halos excluded)

on terminators, absolutly.


a PAGK is probably better off with Falchions and/or Warding Staves against other GKs