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I was working through things this morning and came across this interesting tidbit.

If you're a BS3 player, like guard, and you've got a lascannon, and you try to explode a piece of AV14, you've got a 1/2 chance to hit, a 1/6 chance to pen, and a 1/3 chance to cause an explosion. If you're shooting at an AV12 flier, you've got a 1/6 chance to hit, a 1/2 chance to pen and a 1/3 chance to cause an explosion.

Put another way, a BS3 lascannon has the same chance of killing a helldrake as it does a russ or a land raider. In this case, you can just blot out "flier" in your mind and replace with "fast AV14".

Of course, it's a little different, because a melta gun out of melta range can't cause penetrating hits to AV14, for example. Also, it's different for BS4 because the drop to BS1 hurts more, and twin-linking is much more useful when you're snap firing.

The same idea dues hold vaguely true across other weapons and armor types as well. You can sort of just think of the flier rule as "AV +2" against guns without skyfire.

After hitting the flier could elect to evade as well. A good thought still.

... While this is nice the answer for guard is always going to be a Vendetta (TL-B3 > BS4)... YMMV

A Heldrake somewhat would be better protected due to it's daemon rule, although tanks could also claim cover.

 Tri wrote:
... While this is nice the answer for guard is always going to be a Vendetta (TL-B3 > BS4)... YMMV

Guard doesn't have to use the Vendetta though. There's so much volume of fire that you're gonna hit anyway, especially with twin-linking through Orders.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Tri wrote:
... While this is nice the answer for guard is always going to be a Vendetta (TL-B3 > BS4)... YMMV

Guard doesn't have to use the Vendetta though. There's so much volume of fire that you're gonna hit anyway, especially with twin-linking through Orders.

Yes ... no. Look Volume fire is nice, guard do it well but some times its nice to knowing somethings more likely.

Unless we're talking about blob platoons realistically we're ether talking about weapons teams or single heavy weapons. Orders are a Ld test at 7 =58%(H. weapon teams) 8=72% (Sergent) 9=83% (commissioner) So not a given.

So lets ignore that for now TL-BS1 (30%) vs TL-BS3 (75%) ... So whats the ratio? well you'll need about 4 lascannons per Vendetta lascannon. If you fail that Ld test (or don't bother) BS1 (16.7%) needs about 7 ...

... Sure you can do it without Vendetta but there's a reason that most people like them ... they're a cost effective way of taking 3 TL Lascannons with sky-fire.

 Tri wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Tri wrote:
... While this is nice the answer for guard is always going to be a Vendetta (TL-B3 > BS4)... YMMV

Guard doesn't have to use the Vendetta though. There's so much volume of fire that you're gonna hit anyway, especially with twin-linking through Orders.

Yes ... no. Look Volume fire is nice, guard do it well but some times its nice to knowing somethings more likely.

Unless we're talking about blob platoons realistically we're ether talking about weapons teams or single heavy weapons. Orders are a Ld test at 7 =58%(H. weapon teams) 8=72% (Sergent) 9=83% (commissioner) So not a given.

So lets ignore that for now TL-BS1 (30%) vs TL-BS3 (75%) ... So whats the ratio? well you'll need about 4 lascannons per Vendetta lascannon. If you fail that Ld test (or don't bother) BS1 (16.7%) needs about 7 ...

... Sure you can do it without Vendetta but there's a reason that most people like them ... they're a cost effective way of taking 3 TL Lascannons with sky-fire.

This^^^!
Yes it can be done without Vendettas, but I agree with Tri. If you go another route, you're increasing the variables that could stop it from happening.
Vendettas aren't always a sure thing, but a lot less variables, IMHO.

Alairos is just on a pointless self righteous strike on fliers. He's trying really hard to be a non conformist.

 Ailaros wrote:

Put another way, a BS3 lascannon has the same chance of killing a helldrake as it does a russ or a land raider.

Helldrakes have a 5+ invulnerable save and can fix hull points.

Dalymiddleboro wrote:
Alairos is just on a pointless self righteous strike on fliers. He's trying really hard to be a non conformist.

While I don't agree with everything he says, he does have a point about fliers: you don't have to combat them with fliers of your own, especially not as Guard. The Vendetta is obviously the optimal choice for anti-air, but that doesn't mean it's the only choice. I love how you all went on a semi-rant to prove me wrong when all I did was dare suggest that you could use things other than Vendettas to kill fliers. I'm fully aware that the Vendetta is better, that doesn't remove the other options.

And for the record, with a Lord Commissar you're testing orders on Ld10, which has a 88.888...% success rate. Besides, it's not as though there's not a metric crapton of melta, plasma, autocannons and similar weapons in Guard lists. You don't even have to twin-link, a meltagun hit has a pretty decent chance of wrecking most fliers.

Dalymiddleboro wrote:
Alairos is just on a pointless self righteous strike on fliers. He's trying really hard to be a non conformist.

No, he just argues that you don't need flyers to destroy other flyers. Which is absolutely true. It's really not that difficult to roll a few 6s, especially with as many heavy weapons guard has. Is it as reliable as a Vendetta? Probably not, but a volley of lascannon fire aimed at some flyers will surprise you. Especially when they will be able to shoot at another target before and after the enemy flyer is in range/sight/on the board (as opposed to Vendettas). Pros and cons.

Dalymiddleboro wrote:
Alairos is just on a pointless self righteous strike on fliers. He's trying really hard to be a non conformist.

Actually I just ignore asshats that say stupid things. And A-man is a big boy. He's been called worse by better people.

I think Ailaros's point is probably true for the IG. Unfortunately, the happen to have the best AA flier and access to hordes of cheap heavy weapons. I don't think his point holds true for loyalist marines.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Dalymiddleboro wrote:
Alairos is just on a pointless self righteous strike on fliers. He's trying really hard to be a non conformist.

While I don't agree with everything he says, he does have a point about fliers: you don't have to combat them with fliers of your own, especially not as Guard. The Vendetta is obviously the optimal choice for anti-air, but that doesn't mean it's the only choice. I love how you all went on a semi-rant to prove me wrong when all I did was dare suggest that you could use things other than Vendettas to kill fliers. I'm fully aware that the Vendetta is better, that doesn't remove the other options.

And for the record, with a Lord Commissar you're testing orders on Ld10, which has a 88.888...% success rate. Besides, it's not as though there's not a metric crapton of melta, plasma, autocannons and similar weapons in Guard lists. You don't even have to twin-link, a meltagun hit has a pretty decent chance of wrecking most fliers.

I think you blurring people ... My posts have been that its nice to remember but somewhat unreliable ... so why not take a unit that most people think is a great choice (if not a must have)

Back on point ... A lord Commissar is a 6" bubble of LD10 while that is nice, that is sort of bunching every one up. Melta guns have a 18" range (including a move) So you could move your unit out to target them but each one only has a 16.6% (TL=30%) chance of hitting and to pen even AV10 needs
takes that down to 11%(TL=20%) and a jink save 7.3% (TL=13.3%) ... (actually lets add the LD10 test which is 92% odds ... that's brings it down to 12.2%+0.5% for hit without passing ... 12.7%)

Look I'm not saying don't take a pot shot with any big guns you have ... but i wouldn't risk everything on it.

What I think is strange is that people get so hung up by the idea that with a regular lascannon, you only have a 1 in 6 chance to hit a flier, and nobody has any hangups about a 1 in 6 chance to pen a land raider.

It's the same odds. Nobody thinks twice about bringing lascannons to shoot at AV14, nor would anybody look down their nose at the idea of shooting lascannons you were bringing anyways at AV14.

If it's the same odds, it should provoke the same reaction. Moreover, it should provoke the same way of thinking about things on the tabletop.

As mentioned, things don't line up nicely at all as far as exact pairing of numbers, what with a chainfist never being able to attack a flier, but all fliers being able to be taken down by plasma guns, unlike AV14, but still, it's possible to think of the flier rule under the same metric as +AV, rather than as a whole separate category of things that requires separate tools and separate thinking.

What I think it actually points out is how BAD lascannons are at killing AV14.
Please, fire that Lascannon at my land raider/storm raven. Don't shoot my terminators with it.

Loaded up, my terminators are 470 points for the unit of 10.
1/2 hits, 5/6 wound, 2/3rds fail saves. = ~13 points earned per shot.
vs Land Raider:
1/2 hit, 1/6 pen, 1/3 explode. ~6.9 points earned per shot.

Point for point, the AV14 is twice as hard to kill.

-Matt

Useful piece of information, that does make me look at it differently.

HawaiiMatt wrote:What I think it actually points out is how BAD lascannons are at killing AV14.

Yeah, actually...

Another thing that speaks to both long-range anti-tank being crummy and the main point of the thread is to look at riflemen dreadnaughts against AV10 fliers vs. AV12 ground targets. If what you're trying to do is to kill a vehicle by stripping hull points, a rifleman dread will peel off about 1 per round of shooting against both targets. If, as some people say, AV12 falls apart like soggy cardboard thanks to HP, then AV10 fliers must be pretty bad against non-skyfire weapons like TLACs as well, because once again, nearly the same odds.

Chimeras can't fall apart to an angry look and light fliers require special weapons when a common unit takes down both at roughly equal quality.

Of course, you can also make the claim here that it shows you just how awful autocannons are against vehicles...

I'm not sure that many people are claiming that light flyers are really hard to kill. No one's bringing 3 Crimson Hunters and tabling all comers. More often, I see AV10 flyers being criticized for being too fragile.

Nightscythes are AV11 all around and are dirt cheap. Heldrakes and Vendettas are AV12 on the front and sides. Those are the flyers that people are really concerned about.

HawaiiMatt wrote:
What I think it actually points out is how BAD lascannons are at killing AV14.
Please, fire that Lascannon at my land raider/storm raven. Don't shoot my terminators with it.

Loaded up, my terminators are 470 points for the unit of 10.
1/2 hits, 5/6 wound, 2/3rds fail saves. = ~13 points earned per shot.
vs Land Raider:
1/2 hit, 1/6 pen, 1/3 explode. ~6.9 points earned per shot.

Point for point, the AV14 is twice as hard to kill.

But why on earth wouldn't you include hull points in this? You've just said that you expect to need 36 Lascannon shots to down a Land Raider and you haven't looked at how likely you are to rack up 4 HP in that time. Your numbers are wildly misleading.

You actually expect to need only ~18 Lascannons to kill a Land Raider, counting only Hull Points and Explode results. So actually the Lascannon is roughly equally good, point for point, against your Terminators and a Land Raider.

pantsonhead wrote:
I'm not sure that many people are claiming that light flyers are really hard to kill. No one's bringing 3 Crimson Hunters and tabling all comers. More often, I see AV10 flyers being criticized for being too fragile.

Nightscythes are AV11 all around and are dirt cheap. Heldrakes and Vendettas are AV12 on the front and sides. Those are the flyers that people are really concerned about.

HawaiiMatt wrote:
What I think it actually points out is how BAD lascannons are at killing AV14.
Please, fire that Lascannon at my land raider/storm raven. Don't shoot my terminators with it.

Loaded up, my terminators are 470 points for the unit of 10.
1/2 hits, 5/6 wound, 2/3rds fail saves. = ~13 points earned per shot.
vs Land Raider:
1/2 hit, 1/6 pen, 1/3 explode. ~6.9 points earned per shot.

Point for point, the AV14 is twice as hard to kill.

But why on earth wouldn't you include hull points in this? You've just said that you expect to need 36 Lascannon shots to down a Land Raider and you haven't looked at how likely you are to rack up 4 HP in that time. Your numbers are wildly misleading.

You actually expect to need only ~18 Lascannons to kill a Land Raider, counting only Hull Points and Explode results. So actually the Lascannon is roughly equally good, point for point, against your Terminators and a Land Raider.

Not to mention that anti-infantry weapons that can't handle the Land Raider can handle the Terminators.

Yes Ailaros is correct. But that doesn't mean Flyers are easy kills for single shot LCs, it means that AV14 is bloody resilient against S9 weaponry. Which is why you need melta or some S10 ap 1 to do the job. Or in case of a weak rear, CC.

But still a funny neat calculation.

Same as a stormtrooper being worth a SM in a direct shootout with no cover around.

2/3 hit , 1/3 kill, so 2/9 chance to kill for the stormtrooper
2/3 hit, 2/3 wound 1/2 kill which is 2/9 chance to kill for the SM as well

I am not a friend of those statistics though. Dice are too unpredictable for me (they more often than not, don't hit their expected average result, it just evens out in the long run), so my gut feeling about chances is enough for me.

 Ailaros wrote:
I was working through things this morning and came across this interesting tidbit.

If you're a BS3 player, like guard, and you've got a lascannon, and you try to explode a piece of AV14, you've got a 1/2 chance to hit, a 1/6 chance to pen, and a 1/3 chance to cause an explosion. If you're shooting at an AV12 flier, you've got a 1/6 chance to hit, a 1/2 chance to pen and a 1/3 chance to cause an explosion.

Put another way, a BS3 lascannon has the same chance of killing a helldrake as it does a russ or a land raider. In this case, you can just blot out "flier" in your mind and replace with "fast AV14".

Of course, it's a little different, because a melta gun out of melta range can't cause penetrating hits to AV14, for example. Also, it's different for BS4 because the drop to BS1 hurts more, and twin-linking is much more useful when you're snap firing.

The same idea dues hold vaguely true across other weapons and armor types as well. You can sort of just think of the flier rule as "AV +2" against guns without skyfire.

I think your statistics over look one thing. You concerned on exploded but what about wrecking (without HP). AV 14 explodes so that's still 1/3 but a flyer crashes if it cant move. going off base numbers if you roll a 4+ the flyer is gone so you have 1/2 chance to get rid of the flyer. but if you place a unit 18 inches in front of it then there it goes up to a 5/6. (crew stunned and shaken). Making it easier to blow up a AV 12 flyer than an AV 14.

On a AV13 vehicle your statistics are more even (1/2 hit, 1/3 pen, 1/3 explode) vs. AV12 Flyer (1/6 hit, 1/2 pen, 1/2 wreck)

 ravengatorfan wrote:

I think your statistics over look one thing. You concerned on exploded but what about wrecking (without HP). AV 14 explodes so that's still 1/3 but a flyer crashes if it cant move. going off base numbers if you roll a 4+ the flyer is gone so you have 1/2 chance to get rid of the flyer. but if you place a unit 18 inches in front of it then there it goes up to a 5/6. (crew stunned and shaken). Making it easier to blow up a AV 12 flyer than an AV 14.

On a AV13 vehicle your statistics are more even (1/2 hit, 1/3 pen, 1/3 explode) vs. AV12 Flyer (1/6 hit, 1/2 pen, 1/2 wreck)

Actually Flyers aren't wrecked on Immobilized results. They are instead (almost always) forced to move 36" per turn. They can still turn, though, so they're hard to kill this way, but they will typically end up either leaving the board or at a corner facing away from the battle. Stunned is the more dangerous result for Flyers for the reason you mention. Shaken has no effect on a Flyer's movement.

 Ailaros wrote:
If, as some people say, AV12 falls apart like soggy cardboard thanks to HP, then AV10 fliers must be pretty bad against non-skyfire weapons like TLACs as well, because once again, nearly the same odds.

Well yeah, there's a reason why the flyers people actually take are AV 12 or AV 11 and spammable, and the AV 10/11 flyers are pretty much ignored.

pantsonhead wrote:

 ravengatorfan wrote:

I think your statistics over look one thing. You concerned on exploded but what about wrecking (without HP). AV 14 explodes so that's still 1/3 but a flyer crashes if it cant move. going off base numbers if you roll a 4+ the flyer is gone so you have 1/2 chance to get rid of the flyer. but if you place a unit 18 inches in front of it then there it goes up to a 5/6. (crew stunned and shaken). Making it easier to blow up a AV 12 flyer than an AV 14.

On a AV13 vehicle your statistics are more even (1/2 hit, 1/3 pen, 1/3 explode) vs. AV12 Flyer (1/6 hit, 1/2 pen, 1/2 wreck)

Actually Flyers aren't wrecked on Immobilized results. They are instead (almost always) forced to move 36" per turn. They can still turn, though, so they're hard to kill this way, but they will typically end up either leaving the board or at a corner facing away from the battle. Stunned is the more dangerous result for Flyers for the reason you mention. Shaken has no effect on a Flyer's movement.

Ok I didn't realize that I was thinking skimmers do it so they must. Atleast in 5th they did