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Like the thread title says.

I'm looking at different configurations of a unit, as well as varying strengths to that attack from buffs like inquisitor with hammerhand and rad grenades, etc.

Well what unit are you making? i'm assuming its crusaders with power axes but i could be wrong and it really depends on what you're going up against. Crusaders don't do a lot and are normally just shields for death cults or flagellants that are the real work horses.

Assuming you are won't to kill terminators, the question is less what is over kill and more ''can i survive being hit back?''. A great example is Incubi, one of the few models in the game with AP 2 at Initiative. If they charge a unit of Terminators, i would only do it if i was sure i could kill ALL the Terminatos in one combat, because Incubi have no Invulnerable saves while Terminators do, and Terminators are all rocking powerfists. So in that respect, on the charge a single Incubi causes a single AP 2 wound, which the Termies have a 1/3 chance of saving, so this means i want 1 Incubi for each Term as well an an extra Incubi per every 3. to account for 5++.

Does that help you understand over kill? Assuming you ARE talking about Crusaders then you all have a 3++, meaning you can get hit back. The basic rule of killing terminators is you want to cause 1 wound for each terminator plus 1 per each 3 to kill them all in one combat. Does that sound doable to you?

Lol, bloodletters. are str 4 ap 3. Bring 10 or 120, nothing is overkill. Is just how long they can survive until they go up to close.

Overkill depends entirely on what you're attacking. 60 S4 Ap2 attacks will probably be overkill on a squad of 5 terminators, but it probably won't be on a squad of 50 conscripts.

This all started when I was trying to figure out what to do to buff a blob of 50 guardsmen or 20 battle sisters that I was going to protect Pask with and hide some Psykers in, and then I realized a thing about putting extra priests into the squad... every priest past the 2nd can have Smash. SoB have a relic that lets them auto-pass the check instead of praying they make an Ld7 check... lol. Additionally St. Celestine allows them to make the check at Ld10 if she's within 12" and the warlord. (Yeah, originally back before I realized how gross this blob was turning out to be I had considered her for her I7 Hit and Run, allowing me to tie up an enemy then disengage when Pask was ready to light it up.)

1 Inquisitor with Hammerhand and Rad Grenades (so technically these might as well be S5 once you factor in the penalty)
Priests... lots of them.
So the priests have 3 buffs, 1 allows rerollable saves, 1 allows rerolling to wound, and the last gives them Smash.

SoB have a relic that a priest can take that allows priests to auto-pass their attempt to activate War Hymns. Now normally, units use priests to buff them, but I realized with Smash, priests make 3 S3 AP2 attacks at I3 (4 on the charge) or 1 S6 AP2 attack (2 on the charge) also at I3. Not so impressive until the inquisitor bumps them up. With the relic to buff them, every priest beyond the second is doing this (and if you're willing to forego the other buffs like if you only have 3 priests and you're already wounding on a 2+, or you're swinging first and don't anticipate any incoming wounds...)

So to sum up every 25 additional points gives this units 3-4 more S4 AP2 attacks against -1T enemies. In melee they have rerollable 4++, or rerollable 3++ if you throw in crusaders (because honestly only the guy with the relic needs to be a SoB priest rather than a henchman priest).

If you need the attacks to be stronger, the SoB priests can take maces, which makes their options attacks at S6 AP2 or S10 AP2.

Taken to its logical extreme the unit looks like this:

Inquisitor, 20 priests (Uriah Jacobus could make it 21... but meh?)

It's a 600 point unit that doesn't handle being shot very well, can't embark on any transports, but if for some reason they ever make it to melee, that's 80 S4 AP2 hits on the charge, or 40 S7 AP2 (Hammerhand gets added after the doubling?)



Alternatively, you can add Celestians, activate their act of faith for Furious charge, and have them do the tanking with rerollable 3+. (Though at this point the unit is limited to just the priests from SoB and AM.) If you do this though, every 25 point priest is 2 S10 AP2 hits on the charge. The Celestians cost as much (or as little) as giving a priest a mace each, but best case scenario their ability is only usable 2-3 times per game.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Other things to consider, AM Psykers can take a force Axe free, so the blob that's hiding them has a bunch of AP2 attacks from those guys too, but those aren't at initiative.

(Originally I had 2 priests, 1 Enginseer (remember what he's wielding, and 4 force weapons from inquisitor and the 3 psykers... did some math and realized that the 50 guardsmen and their massive number of attacks weren't really what was going to kill people.)

Other things to think about: Imagine all three psykers are Biomancy/Divination, so you have a good shot at one or more of these:

-4++ for everyone, not just the priests (this makes 50 guardsmen better than 20 sisters, alternatively Uriah + Sisters gives you 3+/5++ units to tank with and an extra priest smash!), you have a decent shot at
-Misfortune to make guys fail their invuln saves against all your AP2s (Also to make Pask's target sad)
-Enfeeble, because T4 models being instant deathed by guardsmen is amusing
-The one that gives Relentless, IWND, and FNP, because the only thing better than charging an enemy unit and putting 100+ attacks into it is shooting with 50 lasguns first. (Or giving the splitfire order, shooting one unit with all the guns except one, then firing some dinky gun into a second unit so you can charge that one, Imperial Knight style.)

Realistically though the blob turned into something more expensive than the unit it was nominally supposed to protect from being charged and lent itself to a playstyle of deploying to the middle, scouting the blob forward enough so the tanks could be deployed on your line and still have dudes in front of them turn 1, then advancing 6" and murdering everything within 24" each turn.

Really shooty armies that deployed well spread out would probably eat it for breakfast, the recent SM CM, command squad with grav guns, khan, and a rune priest star I saw would melt away in probably a single turn's worth of assault phases without ever getting close enough to shoot at Pask.