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With Orks out and Tau and Eldar still claiming top spots, is the Power Maul the better default choice these days?

It's a nice "all comer" option with the buff in strength and concussive and still a decent AP 4. If your character already has a high S the sword may be better for AP 3 but overall the maul is a good choice. Definitely a must on low strength models (sisters/IG, etc...)

Its the Maul or Axe in my book. The strength bonus is more universally applicable. In fact, I think the Maul is almost as good against power armor as the power sword, and if your power armoured target has an invul save, the maul outperforms the the sword.

GorillaWarfare wrote:
Its the Maul or Axe in my book. The strength bonus is more universally applicable.

Yeah it works pretty good overall against most things. But...

In fact, I think the Maul is almost as good against power armor as the power sword, and if your power armoured target has an invul save, the maul outperforms the the sword.

How is this true? To be as good as the sword, it has to wound three times as much as the sword, as 2 out of 3 of the maul's wounds will be saved by armor.

Mauls are awesome on sergeants and the like. Losing AP against MEQs is more than made up for with typically wounding on a 2+ and being able to crack most vehicles without resorting to krak grenades.

Vs T4 and 3+ a strength 4 model with a power sword will land an unsaved wound on 1/2 of its hits. On the same target, a strength 4 model with a power maul will land an unsaved wound on 5/18 of its hits. If the attacker is strength 3, those numbers become 1/3 and 2/9, which is a lot closer.

Against virtually every other target, the Maul will land about 1/3rd more wounds than the Sword. So, unless you know you are facing T4, 3+ opponents, the Maul is the better choice.

Of course, neither of the above deal well with 2+ armour. For that you have to be willing to go at initiative 1.

So... Wound on a 2+, but have to deal with 3+ or wound on a 4+ and dead... I don't really see how that's better. I could see the argument vs. things with higher T. Personally, I think the Axe is more useful because it allows you to kill things that you couldn't easily drown with just more attacks.

Jefffar wrote:
Vs T4 and 3+ a strength 4 model with a power sword will land an unsaved wound on 1/2 of its hits. On the same target, a strength 4 model with a power maul will land an unsaved wound on 5/18 of its hits. If the attacker is strength 3, those numbers become 1/3 and 2/9, which is a lot closer.

Against virtually every other target, the Maul will land about 1/3rd more wounds than the Sword. So, unless you know you are facing T4, 3+ opponents, the Maul is the better choice.

Of course, neither of the above deal well with 2+ armour. For that you have to be willing to go at initiative 1.

However, the Maul still does better than the Sword and at least will likely strike before about 50% of the models sporting 2+ armour.

And for the same points a lighning claw is better than both!

Jefffar wrote:
Vs T4 and 3+ a strength 4 model with a power sword will land an unsaved wound on 1/2 of its hits. On the same target, a strength 4 model with a power maul will land an unsaved wound on 5/18 of its hits. If the attacker is strength 3, those numbers become 1/3 and 2/9, which is a lot closer.

A lot closer? It is still 33% worse! 3 down to 2 is 33% worse. But yes, it is better than going from 9 to 5 which is approaching 50% worse.

Or from the other perspective, a power sword is 50% better than a maul when the attacking model is S3 and the enemy has a 3+ armor save. A power sword is 80% better if the attacker is S4.

 McGibs wrote:
And for the same points a lighning claw is better than both!

Well, it is a specialist weapon so most of the time you will not be getting an extra attack if you use it.

Super Newb wrote:

Jefffar wrote:
Vs T4 and 3+ a strength 4 model with a power sword will land an unsaved wound on 1/2 of its hits. On the same target, a strength 4 model with a power maul will land an unsaved wound on 5/18 of its hits. If the attacker is strength 3, those numbers become 1/3 and 2/9, which is a lot closer.

A lot closer? It is still 33% worse! 3 down to 2 is 33% worse. But yes, it is better than going from 9 to 5 which is approaching 50% worse.

Or from the other perspective, a power sword is 50% better than a maul when the attacking model is S3 and the enemy has a 3+ armor save. A power sword is 80% better if the attacker is S4.

I believe he's saying that at strength 3, a model with a power sword causes an unsaved wound 1/3 of the time, whereas the maul does 2/9 of the time, which means the maul is roughly 11% worse.

flaming tadpole wrote:

Super Newb wrote:

Jefffar wrote:
Vs T4 and 3+ a strength 4 model with a power sword will land an unsaved wound on 1/2 of its hits. On the same target, a strength 4 model with a power maul will land an unsaved wound on 5/18 of its hits. If the attacker is strength 3, those numbers become 1/3 and 2/9, which is a lot closer.

A lot closer? It is still 33% worse! 3 down to 2 is 33% worse. But yes, it is better than going from 9 to 5 which is approaching 50% worse.

Or from the other perspective, a power sword is 50% better than a maul when the attacking model is S3 and the enemy has a 3+ armor save. A power sword is 80% better if the attacker is S4.

I believe he's saying that at strength 3, a model with a power sword causes an unsaved wound 1/3 of the time, whereas the maul does 2/9 of the time, which means the maul is roughly 11% worse.

3/9 versus 2/9. 3/9 is 1.5 times as good as 2/9, or 50% better if you prefer. You need to compare the two methods against each other, not their wound percentage in general. Dropping from 3 down to 2 is a 33% decrease in effectiveness.

Super Newb wrote:

flaming tadpole wrote:

Super Newb wrote:

Jefffar wrote:
Vs T4 and 3+ a strength 4 model with a power sword will land an unsaved wound on 1/2 of its hits. On the same target, a strength 4 model with a power maul will land an unsaved wound on 5/18 of its hits. If the attacker is strength 3, those numbers become 1/3 and 2/9, which is a lot closer.

A lot closer? It is still 33% worse! 3 down to 2 is 33% worse. But yes, it is better than going from 9 to 5 which is approaching 50% worse.

Or from the other perspective, a power sword is 50% better than a maul when the attacking model is S3 and the enemy has a 3+ armor save. A power sword is 80% better if the attacker is S4.

I believe he's saying that at strength 3, a model with a power sword causes an unsaved wound 1/3 of the time, whereas the maul does 2/9 of the time, which means the maul is roughly 11% worse.

3/9 versus 2/9. 3/9 is 1.5 times as good as 2/9, or 50% better if you prefer. You need to compare the two methods against each other, not their wound percentage in general. Dropping from 3 down to 2 is a 33% decrease in effectiveness.

Ahhhhhh gotcha. I thought we were just talking general wounding percentages, not effectiveness...carry on