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So, with the new codex and changes to Pask, I sat down and considered how to field him. I always enjoyed using him in the Heavy Support slot, but since he's found a new home in HQ's, it becomes a greater decision. I started crunching some numbers and wanted to share the results. I ran a sample of 3000 separate simulations to get the best distribution.

The situation:
Pask with Punisher gatling cannon (no other weapons were considered, so they would be a plus)
Warlord trait: Old Grudge (assumed to the vehicle you are firing at)

The data shows the chance that you would wreck an enemy vehicle shooting at the corresponding Armor Value facing. The calculations take into account him only re-rolling 1's to hit (since I read preferred enemy as to not work with armor pens), the addition of rending to the armor pen (1d3) on an armor pen of 6, standard cover saves(edit: also took into account his re-roll of failed pens). For the flyers, I just assumed they would be taking a 5+ jink save.

AV No Cover.....6+.........5+.......4+.........Flyer
10 99.96...........99.76...98.30...92.30..38.80
11 98.13...........92.00....85.80..73.50..27.50
12 96.86...........89.23....78.87..65.70..19.80
13 86.10...........67.40....55.47..41.43...9.87
14 51.93...........16.60....11.90..6.57...0.37

Sorry for the crappy table

It seems anything AV10 would get smoked regardless of cover. The high percentages come from the high volume of glances and pens.

If you can catch AV13's out in the open, they don't stand much of a chance either.

All of this makes it hard for me not to take Pask as my warlord, even if I have to pay almost 300 points for him and his sister tank (which wasn't even included in this calculation.)

The simulation was done using a Python script, which I would make available to anyone who wanted it. Any comments or suggestion?

Nice. Just to clarify, what does his warlord trait do?

" Old Grudges ". Gives Pask and his unit Preferred Enemy against all units from a codex of your choice.

He gets to re-roll failed armour pens btw.

Interesting, how do the other configurations stack up?

TuddFudders wrote:
He gets to re-roll failed armour pens btw.

That's correct. That was included in the calculations, but I forgot to add it to the list of things considered.

Thanks for sharing!

I suspect something is not quite right in the table though. I noticed AV 11-13 has the same probability for 6+ and 5+ cover. Also the drop from 51% to 16% when introducing a 6+ cover save for AV 14 doesn't seem right.

Question. Do you take rolls on the damage table into account or are you counting hull points or both?

So, it looks interesting. Have you made sure that you copied down the results correctly into the table? Doubled checked the code to be sure there are no errors? Also, I'm not familiar at all with python, but I'm curious as to why you didn't just use run a simple model in excel?

Ive been giving this some though since the new codex.
And im quite certain the most effective build right now is the Plasmapask.
Since the executioners only drawback now is get hot, and his skills removes this weakness from the whole squad.

So a executioner with plasma sponsons, lascannon. and 1-2 buddies with the same loadout.

Edited the table to reflect the correct values of 5+ cover save. Python was just easiest for me since I'm currently using it at work, plus going to school for computer science.

I haven't gone through any lists of data, but I believe the reason the cover save doesn't matter as much for AV10 is that there are just so many glances and pens caused by the Punisher. The flip side of that, is that in the ~50% of the time for AV14, it's barely getting enough glances to wreck the vehicle (since pens are impossible) and the cover save drops the number of wrecks greatly.

There is definitely something wrong with your cover saves. They are far to likely to make their cover saves AV13 for example should be ~83% with a 6+ cover.

The pask punisher is absolutely brutal against vehicles. When I back of the envelope calculated average HP I quickly realized that it will chew through anything short of a SH and with prescience up it can chew through flyers better than most AA.

The Plasma Pask is also kind of interesting as blind is a huge benefit against many armies and tank hunter is still useful on the plasma.

Pask on the ordinance tanks though is a trap. He gives them a reroll to hit on the main gun for 60 pts. Whereas you can gain a reroll to hit for the entire unit for 50 pts from a primaris. Tank hunter also doesn't add as much to most of the ordinance weapons.

On the other hand the vanquisher could be pretty good.

I am not sure if tank hunter is propagated to the rest of the unit. If it is Pask makes his entire unit ridiculous.

I think the really gross thing is if you can get an Engineseer to follow behind the unit to give Pask's Punisher PotMS. Give it a lascannon and two melta sponsons. Use PotMS to fire the main gun at a first target, 2 melta shots + lascannon at a second target, and the squad at a third target. And the PotMS splitting fire doesn't require a Ld check so that squad will always be able to fire at at least two targets. This also works with his friends, like if you bring an executioner with him, you could fire 3 plasma cannon shots at one thing and 2 at a second thing. I think with 40 points per tank you'd be able to fire at a ton of targets as long as you can keep an IC in power armor alive per tank. This also has the side benefit of having a chance to repair one of the tanks if it loses its main gun, but at that point Pask's unit really is the core of your army.

 Bla_Ze wrote:
Ive been giving this some though since the new codex.
And im quite certain the most effective build right now is the Plasmapask.
Since the executioners only drawback now is get hot, and his skills removes this weakness from the whole squad.

So a executioner with plasma sponsons, lascannon. and 1-2 buddies with the same loadout.

This is only true if he's the warlord. If you have an external source of twin-linking and he's in a punisher, you don't need him to be the warlord, or if you take him in an allied detachment, then he can't be the warlord.
If he is the warlord no benefit to him being in the plasma tank himself. You can put him in a punisher and have an executioner buddy who gains the full benefit.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ansacs wrote:
I am not sure if tank hunter is propagated to the rest of the unit. If it is Pask makes his entire unit ridiculous.

edit: No. He doesn't have tank hunter. He has an ability that gives just his tank a rule that works exactly like it. If he had the tank hunters rule, his entire unit would in fact get it.