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After playing a few games with my BA, i have started to debate the loadout on my ASM sergeants... I figured I would take a poll and get some advice on the pro's and con's of swapping my Pfists for weapons. I realize initiative is probably the biggest change, but is there anything I am overlooking?

Its recommended for independent characters to take power weapon, if you have good iniative. Otherwise always fist.

Fists have better strength, meaning that they wound better, are better vs. vehicles (especially walkers), and can insta-gib multi-wound models.

Swords strike at higher initiative, are cheaper, and can get a bonus attack from a pistol.

And... Thats it.

Both are good, but it comes down to who you're fighting against. If it's an army with an I 5+ then you might as well keep the fist and crush some faces when it's your turn. Also keep in mind that you'll have one less attack, but when you roll to wound you're tossing a 2+ most of the time so you'll put more wounds on target. Also don't forget that one shotting HQs or multi wound targets is always a great feeling.

If you seem to be burning points though it's fine to change out to a PW and strike at the same time as the enemy and cut down a couple. But when you roll the dice you'll typically see that you're still causing the same amount of wounds or less and you've lost your best MC/IC killer.

fair enough. just for clarification i am running fists atm... my concern primarily comes from my experiences against orks. the fists tended to underperform in that wound allocation put the fist wounds on boyz instead of nobz. but I can definately see the advantage of fists against marines and similar (do fists ignore invulnerable saves?)

Generally the fist is best as defensive or "Oh S**t" kind of thing. If you find yourself in combat with a walker or similarly nasty griblie. On assault marines it is less important because you have furious charge and krak grenades. You can still harm most vehicles and MCs with PW, but the biggest threat would be a Dreadnought which you would only be able to glance on a six. If you are able to avoid combat with dreads then I would go with PW and Melta Bombs.

Well, seeing as you're only talking about your assault marines, I think that it should be about 2:1 for fists, so two fists and one power weapon.

The guys with the fists do what they do best against nasty armoured vehicles and other gribblies, whilst the guy with the sword goes for more against infantry. It doesn't have to be all one wy or another.

Yikes! Power Fist against Orks sounds like a bad idea to me, I play orks and our initiative is pretty low compared to most other armies, so letting me strike first against MEQ sounds like a gift from the grace of Mork and Gork!

I guess it all goes back to depending on who you're playing against.

Darkninja107 wrote:Yikes! Power Fist against Orks sounds like a bad idea to me, I play orks and our initiative is pretty low compared to most other armies, so letting me strike first against MEQ sounds like a gift from the grace of Mork and Gork!

I guess it all goes back to depending on who you're playing against.

Everyone else is still going before you, and PW going first matters little against boyz cuz your armor sucks anyway and it takes way too many PW wounds to take down Nobs.
PF on the other hand wounds on 2+ against just about everything and insta-kill nobs.

Jackster wrote:

Darkninja107 wrote:Yikes! Power Fist against Orks sounds like a bad idea to me, I play orks and our initiative is pretty low compared to most other armies, so letting me strike first against MEQ sounds like a gift from the grace of Mork and Gork!

I guess it all goes back to depending on who you're playing against.

Everyone else is still going before you, and PW going first matters little against boyz cuz your armor sucks anyway and it takes way too many PW wounds to take down Nobs.
PF on the other hand wounds on 2+ against just about everything and insta-kill nobs.

I'm fully aware of all of this, I wasn't saying the Power Fist was a bad idea over the PW, just in general. And everyone else goes before me unless they have the Power Fist which means I have a good chance of dealing enough wounds tomake the Fist not matter.

If a squad has 2 meltas then it may be a good idea to charge in with a power fist to take any remaining wounds.
If a squad has 2 flamers then it may be a good idea to charge in with a power weapon.
That is why they are often chosen like that.

In a razorback as is common I would give nothing, as weapons will not have so much effect.

OK how do you take down a dread or a kan, do not say meltabombs.
Nobz squads, meganobz and deff koptas the powerfist will be needed and well used. If you take sanguinary guard they will not deal with multiple wounds and your assault termies very well may get bogged down elsewhere.
Wound allocation is slightly worse with the powerweapon as they allocate all the powerweapon wounds to the same model if it comes with tons of wounds at the same init.

Always take Plasma Pistols/ Power Weapons. Its always fun. (not good, fun)

My fists have never let me down


My ing powerweapons, though, are a ing epic failure. Every ing time. They either ing miss 90% of the time, or they ing fail to ing wound god ing damn it. Can't go wrong with a 2+ to wound!

Darkninja107 wrote:

I'm fully aware of all of this, I wasn't saying the Power Fist was a bad idea over the PW, just in general. And everyone else goes before me unless they have the Power Fist which means I have a good chance of dealing enough wounds tomake the Fist not matter.

Well, if you have enough attacks to wipe the squad in the first place, then all PW would do is 1 or 2 extra casualties, which hardly changes the outcome.

From a straight mathematical stand point: PW with bolt pistol vs PF against meq

PW: 3 attacks
PF: 2

PW: 3 attacks, 1.5 hit, .75 wounded = .75 dead
PF: 2 attacks, 1 hit, .87 wounded = .87 dead

with charge:

PW: 4 attacks, 2 hit, 1 wounded = 1 dead
PF: 3 attacks, 1.5 hit, 1.25 wounded = 1.25 dead

Power fists will always show better results. However if you compare a lightening claw:

LC: 2 attacks, 1 hit, 0.75 wounded = 0.75 dead

on charge:
LC: 3 attacks, 1.5 hit, 1.13 wounded = 1.13 dead

LCs are better than PW.

All of that aside, only one of these weapons is going to actually matter when a dreadnaught or MC engages the squad. PF are always the best option. They let you take a combi weapon, deal the most damage, harm dreads and MCs and nuke ICs.

I typically only put PF on squads of 10. 5 man squads don't live long enough for the fist to do its work. If I even bother to kit out a 5 man squad I usually go Powersword and meltabombs.

That is a good point. 5 man squads tend to get squished pretty quickly.