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How frequently does a naked vet sarge kill a Nob?

1/2 hit, 1/2 wound. 1/4 HP lost, assuming no armor/fnp/anything else.

If you charge them (Orkz!) He's got 2 attacks. 1/16 chance for a 24pt model to win that challenge. Nob shouldn't be scared. Odds are a little better if Marines assault, but still well under half.

Hell, Asurmen failed to even *hit* an Ork nob last night. Sometimes dice suck.

Even a Scorpion Exarch, whose purpose is to punk Sarge-equivs, is more likely to lose. And fully kitted, he costs *more*.

So its more like two ~200 pt units meet. Then your champ chumps the other (sarge or exarch). Then your Boyz and da boss krump, if they haven't been shot too badly coming in.

(Charged a mob of 15 with 7 harlies w/everything, 4DAs, and 5 Spiders with a power blades exarch last night. And the Orkz nearly held. Wtf. Troop Master is one of the things a Nob should fear. But they are a Harlie, and things need to go right for him to be scary. But dice are dice!

RedNoak wrote:

 zombiekila707 wrote:
Hey just to let you know i recommended putting your warboss in a squad of boyz with a nob so when you get challenged just throw the nob at the challenger instead! warboss will be fine may lose the nob but at least your warboss is still kicking!

for what? so the character who killed my nob can kill my warbos in the next assault phase?

No. So the warboss and the other twenty-odd boyz can murder the hell out of the rest of the enemy unit. At which point, captain billy no-mates wipes the nob's blood off his shiny sword, turns around, says "I chall.." and gets dog-piled by the rest of the mob whilst the warboss stands at the back chuckling to himself. For that matter, if the mob wipes out the enemy with their regular choppa attacks during the challenge, the warboss can intervene in the challenge directly.

your 24 point seargent has a 50% chance of significantly cripple a 220 point unit

Not even slightly. A sergeant's attacks have a 50% chance of hitting, and hits have a 50% chance of causing wounds. That means a 25% chance of an attack wounding.
For three attacks to cause two wounds (i.e. a generic veteran with a pistol and power sword so I don't have to do the 5/6 maths for the save) the odds are more like 10%. Causing one wound is good, but pretty much still a death sentance for the sergeant, who has about a 3% chance of surviving if the Nob gets to swing. I'll take 9-1 odds.

Plus whilst I agree on walkers and big monsters, I disagree that a mob is unable to hurt a marine squad with a frankly ridiculous number of S4 attacks on the charge.

Murrdox wrote:

Challenges didn't exist before 6th Edition, and special characters still had tons of ways to kill each other in close combat, and close combat was more FUN in those editions. That's my 2 cents on it.

I, too, miss the times when the best close combat troop choice was 30 guardsmen with a commissar and a priest hiding in the unit.

No. So the warboss and the other twenty-odd boyz can murder the hell out of the rest of the enemy unit. At which point, captain billy no-mates wipes the nob's blood off his shiny sword, turns around, says "I chall.." and gets dog-piled by the rest of the mob whilst the warboss stands at the back chuckling to himself. For that matter, if the mob wipes out the enemy with their regular choppa attacks during the challenge, the warboss can intervene in the challenge directly.

This. I agree that challenges are unbalanced and can be used as a stalling tactic, and the result could potentially be crippling, but there are some balances.

What they REALLY need to fix is having HoW go after challenges are issued. For instance:
A full squad of assault marines are barrelling at the last of a squad of cultists. Rather than land on top of them and not even bother with their chain swords, they stop and putter around for a bit because the cultist champion called the SM sergeant a ninny.

Challenges, p.101: "Challenges are issued at the start of the fight sub-phase, before any blows are struck."

HoW p.165: "This Attack is resolved during the Fight sub-phase at the Iniative 10 step...."