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So yeah, before this thread becomes 3 pages long OP, take a truckload of both Autocannons and lascannons and see what works best for you.

Both have their place.

MrMoustaffa wrote:Plus, blowing up an opponent's favorite vehicle with the first lascannon shot of the game never gets old.

Yeah, the last game I played was up against a necron player at 1500 points who had three fliers and two overlord command barges with warscythes (so, a powerful list). Over the past few months, this player has been beating the hell out of everybody with his pair of chariots. Most of the time, they wind up being AV13, HP5 monsters that the lord doesn't even need to disembark from to completely crush whatever they touch. Most players are left on turn 3 either desperately trying to finish off the lords or desperately swatting at the fliers. It's pretty tough.

Anyways, in my last game it was my first time against him with proper lascannon spam. Both of his barges went down turn 1. The overlords had to get out and walk. It basically screwed over my opponent's strategy turn 1.

Had I been packing autocannons, I would have likely stripped off a few hull points, and that would have been it. On turn 2, all of his fliers would have shown up (as they did in this game), and then a combination of invincible flying warscythes, raining tesla, and death rays. My opponent would have controlled the board, and I would have struggled just to defend my own deployment zone.

What made the difference was lascannons.

Which is another thing to consider. Yes, autocannons are efficient, over time. I'd like to stress that OVER TIME bit. An autocannon will kill darn near anything over time, and do it for fairly cheaply, over a few turns.

The problem is that you rarely have 3-4 turns to whittle down those chimeras/command barges/ leman russes/ ghost arks/ rhinos/ whatever. You've got 1, maybe two turns top, before whatever needed killing with those lascannons has either done its job, eliminated your weapons, or both.

What made me stop bringing Autocannons wasn't that they couldn't kill things (they very much can) but that it took far too long for them to do so. I either had to focus insane amounts of firepower to guarantee the kill, or I had to accept that I would ding a hull point here and there and hope I could weather the counter attack. While the lascannon isn't as "efficient" as an autocannon might be over time in a controlled enviornment, the fact of the matter is that a lascannon actually has a good chance of killing what you point it at in a quick amount of time. When I bring lascannons, I actually have a good shot of killing something when it matters (aka the early game) and don't have to sit there and whittle it down over 3 or 4 turns.

 ender502 wrote:

 Barksdale wrote:

 TheCaptain wrote:


So basically if you have 3+ Lascannons, they are superior.

Well, it depends. I said I wouldn't analyze, but here I go.

At HWT less than three, the lascannon is always superior (against vehicles). At three HWTs the autocannon has a slightly higher probability of destroying av10.. If you run the same model for more heavy weapons teams you will find that at six HWTs, the autocannon has a slightly greater probability of destroying av11. The av trend stops there, however. No number of autocannons will have a greater probability of destroying a 3HP av12 vehicle. Ofcourse, this analysis ignores several things, but it is a starting point for more specific analyses.

That is some interesting stuff. Could you show your basic math model? Also, what factors (that you are aware of) are being ignored in the analysis?

ender502

Its just a binomial model. I think the only thing I ignored is getting double immobilized results equaling a kill. Even so, the probabilities are very close.

I'm not good at the whole mathhammer thing, but what do you guys think about using mortars as ranging shots for griffons and basilisks? Or do the rules just allow pre-measuring these days regardless?

You can pre-measure everything in 6th, at any time.