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As someone who primarily plays the tyranids, I can say that AP4 is in an annoyingly small niche and is annoyingly overprevalent in the Tyranid Codex, many weapons being AP4 for seemingly no justifiable reason other than to not be able to penetrate MEQ saves. I mean the rupture cannon having the same chances of penetrating a Land Raider's armour as a single tactical marine's, really? Does that make any sense? And while there are plenty of units it does pierce the armour of, these tend to have small enough models to easily get cover saves anyway, or are frequently avoided due to the oversaturation of AP4. Paradoxically, I think AP4 would be more usable if there were less AP4 guns, as that would mean more people would choose things with 4+ saves.

Joey wrote:AP3 isn't nearly as good as people think. It means marines take a 4+ cover save instead of 3+ armour save. You're nearly always better off just spamming them with wounds.
AP2 is golden though, obviously.

Assuming you can spam them with at least 16.6% more wounds anyway. Otherwise, your AP3 actually IS better.

daedalus wrote:

Joey wrote:AP3 isn't nearly as good as people think. It means marines take a 4+ cover save instead of 3+ armour save. You're nearly always better off just spamming them with wounds.
AP2 is golden though, obviously.

Assuming you can spam them with at least 16.6% more wounds anyway. Otherwise, your AP3 actually IS better.

Stormtroopers pay an 8 point premium for AP3 lasguns. Assuming the marines are in cover they cause the same amount of casualties as a boltgun.
Obvbiously I'm not talking about things that are AP3 because of their high strength - Battlecannons, et al.

Well, that's legit.

I prefer to pretend that they get free hot-shots and pay an 8 point premium to deep strike though.

I disagree with most people here about usefulness.

The AP values trickle down. An AP4 weapon isnt exclusive to units with a save of 4+. It's more useful than AP5 simply because not only is it good against 5+ units like GEQ but good against there elite friends as well in addition to other units like Tau.

It's just a trickle down effect.

One reason i always get a 4+ save when it is avaible is this: people dont use much AP4, or when they use, it is in heavy weapons. At the same time, most rapid fire weapons are AP5, so the 4+ save is great because you will not be shoot to death by simple infantry weaponry...

That is why i will not say AP4 is bad, because if you got it you are rid of those annoying 4+ saves some units have, that just stay on the way...

By other hand, AP6 IS unusefull. Units with save 6+ will normally be in cover, or are fielded in big blobs. Out of cover, they are easy target for most basic infatry weapons (AP5), in cover they can be assault... What is a 6+ anyway, most of the times AP6 is so usefull as AP "-".

I think AP5 is the rule, AP6 and "-" are disvantages from the weapon (like someone said, for high str, or fire rate), and AP 4, 3 and 2 are upgrades (wich normally will cost some str OR fire rate). In that case, AP4 is still one of the most usefull as it normally dont "charge to much", as do AP3 and 2.

Ap 1 is the same as AP2, it just givehave an extra effect...

I think a more capcious question would be: wich AP is more usefull? Include regular price cost on the sum, and I will say it is AP4...

Stormtroopers pay an 8 point premium for AP3 lasguns. Assuming the marines are in cover they cause the same amount of casualties as a boltgun.

Stormtroopers are 2 meltaguns for 105p. The rest is fun stuff, sometimes useful (especially 2 ccw) but they are taken for the meltaguns and their quite reliable delivery either in a chimera over the flank/scouting or deepstriking. The hot shots lack strength.

-Nazdreg- wrote:

Stormtroopers pay an 8 point premium for AP3 lasguns. Assuming the marines are in cover they cause the same amount of casualties as a boltgun.

Stormtroopers are 2 meltaguns for 105p. The rest is fun stuff, sometimes useful (especially 2 ccw) but they are taken for the meltaguns and their quite reliable delivery either in a chimera over the flank/scouting or deepstriking. The hot shots lack strength.

Fielding Stormtroopers just for two meltaguns seems a little... frivolous? Considering three meltas in a vet squad is 100pts, and three in a SWS is 90pts. I'd be rocking plasma, personally, and send them heavy infantry hunting.

Usually you field the stormtroopers for two meltaguns, and then deep strike them wherever it will hurt the most. 105pts with built in delivery mechanism > 155pts and you have to get them across the table. The downside being that they're a throwaway unit and not scoring, but it allows for precision strikes.

The 160pts for scouting them in a Chimera seems a bit steep for what you're getting, but it enables them to possibly stick around for a second round of shooting, depending upon how much the opponent over-committed himself to charging.

I've never actually tried the two plamsas before, and it's an interesting idea. Have you actually tried this? How many men strong was the squad? I assume you brought a Chimera?

I've never tried it, I'm afraid. It's just something I've always wanted to try out. I'm constantly changing my Guard list, though, so it's only a matter of time. I make frequent use of Vendettas and Valks, so I'd probably put them in one of them. All the better to get them across the board.

Put like you did, I can see the benefit to the deep-striking suicide squad. Personally, I'd prefer to put them in a transport as my experiments with doomed squads have always resulted in disappointment.

Joey wrote:AP3 isn't nearly as good as people think. It means marines take a 4+ cover save instead of 3+ armour save. You're nearly always better off just spamming them with wounds.

That's assuming you're playing with 4+ cover everywhere, and that nobody is ever caught out in the open.

Not unreasonable, but personally I don't see the point in playing with 4+ cover all over the board.

Yes, AP4 is largely the same as AP5 in practical usefulness.

But, if I have a gripe with the system regarding AP, it is that there are plenty of high-strength weapons that have disproportionately bad AP. Examples:

Autocannons are S7 and used to bust light vehicles. Why would MEQ armor give a save against them? Ridiculous. They should be at least AP3.

Tesla destructors are S7 and used for the same purpose. But they are AP-. So, they get -1 on the damage chart and even orks get t-shirt saves against them. At the very least, they should be AP5.

IG multilasers have similar stupidity albeit S6.

it is just bad design.

biccat wrote:

Joey wrote:AP3 isn't nearly as good as people think. It means marines take a 4+ cover save instead of 3+ armour save. You're nearly always better off just spamming them with wounds.

That's assuming you're playing with 4+ cover everywhere, and that nobody is ever caught out in the open.

Not unreasonable, but personally I don't see the point in playing with 4+ cover all over the board.

If you aren't getting cover saves 99% of the time, you're playing with insufficient terrain.

I really like my AP4 warpfire. It tends to catch people off guard since there aren't a whole lot of massed fire that is AP4. Sure, most of the time people are going to get cover, but when I catch a squad of fire warriors or necron warriors out in the open it is quite wonderful.

Necrontyr40k wrote:Yes, AP4 is largely the same as AP5 in practical usefulness.

But, if I have a gripe with the system regarding AP, it is that there are plenty of high-strength weapons that have disproportionately bad AP. Examples:

Autocannons are S7 and used to bust light vehicles. Why would MEQ armor give a save against them? Ridiculous. They should be at least AP3.

Tesla destructors are S7 and used for the same purpose. But they are AP-. So, they get -1 on the damage chart and even orks get t-shirt saves against them. At the very least, they should be AP5.

IG multilasers have similar stupidity albeit S6.

it is just bad design.

Rupture Cannons and Venom Cannons have the same problem. Said to turn tanks inside out and can bust vehicles fairly well (though venom cannons for some mystifying reason get functional ap- against vehicles, and scattering really, really hurts venom cannons against vehicles) but the armour of one lowly space marine? Will deflect it 2/3rds of the time. A rupture cannon has a better chance of penetrating a Predator Tank's frontal armour than a Space Marine's power suit. That makes absolutely no flipping sense.

As a guard player, AP really isn't much of a factor for me as my tactics are all about weight of fire. Cover is always my save so AP is useless against me mostly, I am also assuming that if I move out of cover 90% of the weaponry shooting at me will be negating guard armor anyway. I fear cover negating weaponry the most... flamer's, airburst thunderfire cannon rounds and weight of fire. I bubble wrap my tanks and pray to the Emperor for good cover saves for them.

I do use 2 sqauds of chimera melta vets but they are solely anti armor, so again their ap is not really an issue as I rarely target them against troops since rarely are spacemarines or terminators (with out SS) standing out in the open saying "HEY! look at me! come melta me!" I do try to prevent melta from getting close to my armor. But AP is really an afterthought. Str is critical!

Units able to take ap3 stock weaponry... sternguard come to mind do have a general advantage with their ap3 weapons, but that can easily be negated by their points cost or their vulnerability. Again I am thinking like a guard player. I would rather have more rolls more men more shots etc. The larger your pool of dice rolls per game the closer you approach a normal distribution of dice rolls. Whereas a marine player with fewer models and thus fewer dice rolls is really going to be hit by that group roll of 1s and 2s.

It is always nice to use a weapon that negates an entire dice roll. I guess depending on what army you are fielding you care more or less about what ap you have and are up against. You just have to ask yourself: how are you implementing the weapon or unit and complement your list.

I think the time that AP is best that we all forget about is power weapon use, they negate the armor save thus no dice roll. Sure it is not true ap anything, in fact against a tank it would be ap- right ? but we are mostly talking about negating models armor saves here and ap4 weapons... I just thought I would throw another perspective out there.

With incredible cover saves 3 seems to be the worst as the weapons often cost way to much because of its relatively easy time killing marines. Gauss cannons star cannons and plasma cannons happen to be pretty depressing in practice though.

As for the Ap3 argument, the real problem is cost. For the chance (however slim) of getting marines out on the open with hellguns, or completely surprising your opponent with a banewolf, or whatever, you have to pay a pretty big markup. Just for the chance to do it.

Instead of paying that big premium, as joey notes, you could have just brought spam shooting instead.

I mean, for the price of a banewolf with a stubber, you basically get two hydras. I know which of those two is going to consistently down more marines regardless of where on the board they are, while also being able to threaten a wider range of targets, than the other.

You definitely pay a premium for AP3. But MEQs are so common its often worth the cost (plus aside from hotshot lasguns most ap3 weapons have high str, doubling as light vehicle poppers).

It would be interesting to see if the metagame changed (less cover on boards, but more benefits to fielding swarms of light infantry) how ap would be affected. As the IG player said, sometimes weight of fire can have its own equivalent ap value, particularly when the number of targets is small.

Ap2 and 3 tend to be more 'decisive' because you have the potential to wipe out something really expensive if you get a clear line of sight. What I dont like about ap4 is if your enemies are MEQ they dont have to worry about cover and its easier for them to exploit your weaknesses, be it mobility, fragility, assault, etc.

Ailaros hit the nail squarely on the head. The only thing that matters is how efficiently priced the guys carrying the considered guns are.

Ran wrote:Ailaros hit the nail squarely on the head. The only thing that matters is how efficiently priced the guys carrying the considered guns are.

From a practical standpoint I'd agree as well.

Guard in particular are a good example, which is likely why Ailaros is so keen to bring this view point up. You get AP4 Heavy Bolters and Heavy Flamers for free on basically every vehicle and relatively cheap AP4 Autocannons throughout the codex, along with a few other sources. Compare that to AP3, you've got hot-shot lasguns and krak missiles on troops, and a few primary vehicle weapons. If you're looking for AP3 exactly it's going to be pretty pricey, or force you to use units that aren't exactly great. AP2 and AP1 are more relatively affordable for this codex considering the value of targets they'll be firing at. From a purely IG standpoint I'd be looking at AP5 or AP6 as the least useful, they're on the middle ground between simply going AP- and firing more shots, or getting AP4 and ignoring Sv4,5 and 6.

Each other's codex's specifics will change what their best and worst AP values are. If my basic weapon as the Bolter I sure wouldn't be question AP5 like I do with IG.

I think OP's point is which AP upgrades give the least bang for their buck. A good litmus test would be to look at a weapon and ask a simple question: Would I still consider using the same weapon for the same point value if it's AP were 1 worse.

Prime examples of weapons where a 1 point AP value shift would severely nerf them.
Krak missiles at AP4 would bounce off MC/MEQ armor
AP- Multi lasers would be pretty worthless against light vehicles
Melta guns are a do or die weapon when shooting vehicles, the AP1 is vital

Prime examples of weapons where a 1 point AP shift would not severely nerf them.

AP2 lascannons/plasma guns/cannons would still kill MEQ just as well as they do now.
Bolters: Guardsmen would still die in droves to AP6 boltgun fire, while orks, gaunts, and MEQ would be unaffected.
If GW put out an errata tomorrow saying all AP4 GK weapons (inclusing psyfleman and psycannons) are now AP5 the meta would remain unchanged.

Best to worst AP values IMO is as follows.
AP3 :despite popular belief MEQ are often found out of cover
AP6: Avoids a -1 on vehicle damage charts, nuff said
AP1: +1 on vehicle damage chart, nuff said
AP2: Still don't see that many targets with a 2+ save in the meta
AP5: Keeps light infantry from leaving area terrain.
AP4: 4+ armor saves are still not seen often, and units with 4+ armor usually suck in CC

I believe most people get what his point is, but the counter point is that it's not a practical argument since you're only looking at one piece of the puzzle.

Compared to all the other AP transitions you gain the least by going from 4 to 5. Fair enough, it really doesn't do much. However, what myself and others argue is that this doesn't always matter when actually applied to the game, when it's applied to points specifically. What you often find in the game is that AP4 weapons are easy to get. You pay a little bit more than AP5 and you gain a little bit more effectiveness. Go one step further to AP3 and you're paying far more for far more effectiveness. Any given AP value is only the "least useful" when it's prohibitively costly or hard to implement given its effectiveness.

schadenfreude wrote:
AP- Multi lasers would be pretty worthless against light vehicles

I disagree. Today one of my chimera's multi-lases immobilised a Storm Raven that had gone flat out the turn before.

Necrontyr40k wrote:
Autocannons are S7 and used to bust light vehicles. Why would MEQ armor give a save against them? Ridiculous. They should be at least AP3.

Tesla destructors are S7 and used for the same purpose. But they are AP-. So, they get -1 on the damage chart and even orks get t-shirt saves against them. At the very least, they should be AP5.

IG multilasers have similar stupidity albeit S6.

it is just bad design.

It isn't bad design. If autocannons were AP3 no one would ever field missile launchers at the same price. As it stands missiles give you less shots, but better AP and a little more AV pop.

Kevlar wrote:

Necrontyr40k wrote:
Autocannons are S7 and used to bust light vehicles. Why would MEQ armor give a save against them? Ridiculous. They should be at least AP3.

Tesla destructors are S7 and used for the same purpose. But they are AP-. So, they get -1 on the damage chart and even orks get t-shirt saves against them. At the very least, they should be AP5.

IG multilasers have similar stupidity albeit S6.

it is just bad design.

It isn't bad design. If autocannons were AP3 no one would ever field missile launchers at the same price. As it stands missiles give you less shots, but better AP and a little more AV pop.

Well back in 2nd edition there was no such thing as AP and weapons gave a standard -1 to armor saves per point of Str above 3. S7 weapons like autocannons had a -4 to armor saves, and power armor gave no protection against them. Power armor just didn't mean much back then with bolters reducing armor saves to a 4+, heavy bolters to a 5+, and krak grenades to a 6+ (back then marines could throw krak grenades 8" towards each other)

Joey wrote:AP3 isn't nearly as good as people think. It means marines take a 4+ cover save instead of 3+ armour save. You're nearly always better off just spamming them with wounds.
AP2 is golden though, obviously.

o_O
play marines much? It sucks taking 4+ instead of 3+. And I love this concept of "the models always have cover saves!"

Joey wrote:

biccat wrote:

Joey wrote:AP3 isn't nearly as good as people think. It means marines take a 4+ cover save instead of 3+ armour save. You're nearly always better off just spamming them with wounds.

That's assuming you're playing with 4+ cover everywhere, and that nobody is ever caught out in the open.

Not unreasonable, but personally I don't see the point in playing with 4+ cover all over the board.

If you aren't getting cover saves 99% of the time, you're playing with insufficient terrain.

If you can't figure out how to deny cover saves, your either doin' it wrong or playing with nothing but area terrain

Anyone who thinks AP3 Isn't that good- play marines. The sheer joy of walking around not needing cover gives you so much more mobility and options for your squads movement. AP3 weapons force marines into cover. If you can't see the difference there (especially with CSM, SW, BA who excel at close range and assault), you really should play some games as marines.

Kevlar wrote:

It isn't bad design. If autocannons were AP3 no one would ever field missile launchers at the same price. As it stands missiles give you less shots, but better AP and a little more AV pop.

I disagree. Missile launchers pen AV easier, can insta-kill most multi-wound MEQ, deny FNP to MEQ, are better against vehicles, and have great versatility because they can switch to frag against mobs of lesser troops. Autocannon just has 2 shots period. There are many good reasons to take ML even if AC had been AP3.

Also, I don't mind seeing AC cost go up a bit accordingly. Right now, they are dirt-cheap for what they do anyway. When I play IG, I load up on them like a maniac. But, you do not see longfangs or other devastator types taking ACs. Why not? If they were AP3 but still S7, would they be taken instead of ML? I doubt it very much.

Necrontyr40k wrote:Also, I don't mind seeing AC cost go up a bit accordingly. Right now, they are dirt-cheap for what they do anyway. When I play IG, I load up on them like a maniac. But, you do not see longfangs or other devastator types taking ACs. Why not? If they were AP3 but still S7, would they be taken instead of ML? I doubt it very much.

4xAC Havocs e'rry day yo

I'll actually go out and say that AP3 guns are the worst. AP4, while seldom useful in itself, nevertheless tends to have weapons like Autocannons or Heavy bolters which have good volume of fire. AP3 guns are often single-shot, and prohibitively expensive. Yet when enemy is in cover, or has 2+ save, they are no better than weaker gun. So you end up paying premium from an ability which often does not matter.

Best example are Vespids, they are actually ruined by having AP3 gun. That makes them expensive, and designer, having given them AP3, could not have made them powerful in other respects so they have crappy BS and volume of fire. They would be so much better if they were say, armed with just Boltgun equivalents.