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Is the AB worth it given the CA points drop? Especially a sautekh one that can move and fire heavy weapons without penalty? I have two in my army and may use one as a CCB. I I was thinking of putting a spider behind it to give it d3 living metal repair per turn. Not sure it's worth it.

This thread has led me to do a massive amount of mathhammer material. I expect to compile everything into some articles within the week. For now, here's an answer to your question.

Sadly, the Spyder was overcosted before and remains so today. If you want to use it, use it to support units that lose effectiveness with wounds, unlike the Barge.

Attached below (imgur is blocked at work) is a spreadsheet detailing the expected damage per round of firing for the Annihilation Barge. I also included the numbers for when it is used with the Sautekh stratagem, and -1 to hit calculations are included as well. It appears that the Barge is great at hitting GEQ, and the Tesla is slightly but strictly worse unless you spend the 2 CP for the stratagem.

The stratagem, when used with the Gauss Cannon loadout adds on average: 3 dead GEQs, 1.5 dead MEQS, 1.4 VEQ damage, and 0.9 KEQ damage. The Tesla loadout trails by about 1 for each category, minus GEQ and MEQ post stratagem. There, it leads by 0.5 for GEQ and is equal on MEQ.

Definitely spend the 7 points for GC if you can spare the points.



Now let's compare the Barge to the Stalker. That's the second image.

The stalker trails behind for GEQ and MEQ, but it ties or leads VEQ and KEQ unless you spend 2 cp for the very costly Sautekh Stratagem on the Barge. The lead is slight (0.2) for VEQ unless you move within 12" with the HR, where the VEQ lead jumps to 1 damage ahead.

The Stalker is the better anti tank weapon, and even if you move, the HR and HGC for VEQ still lead the Tesla loadout by 0.3 and only trail behind the Gauss by 0.6. Nice.

The biggest gap is when you are outside of 8" for the Heat Ray. There, the Stalker trails by 6 dead GEQ and 2.4 dead MEQ. Dead GEQ and MEQ is a steady 1 whether you move or not, unless you use the mediocre Particle Shredder.



What if that gap could be closed by the reroll rule for the Stalker? What units would need to fire on that target to close the GEQ and MEQ gap?

Enter, image 3 and 4, split to keep from getting huge. The gains from Stalker reroll buff, including calculations for MWBD units.


Our goal is to make up the gap of 6 GEQ and 2.4 MEQ by counting the additional damage from units shooting the reroll-buff target. Let's go!

Warning, this math is likely fuzzy. It has been a long day. The other numbers are solid.

To make up the GEQ gap, it is closed by (collapsed for space) :


To make up the MEQ gap of 2.4:


Why does it take so many Tesla shots? Because diminishing returns are a bitch and a half. The addition of the reroll sadly only adds a minor amount to the average. It takes a lot more shots to close the gap, but keep in mind that you're dealing heavy damage as is. We are merely measuring closing a gap through a reroll buff.

In conclusion: The stalker can't close the GEQ and MEQ gap unless you have very large amounts of firepower abusing the rerolls. However, the extra damage against VEQ and KEQ are very nice, especially since the Stalker already leads in damage for those.

Heat Ray is a solid option to close the gap, so long as you get within 8". But that's a different story.


The annihilation Barge is very solid, but just keep in mind the trade-offs by running it. The Stalker is more durable, better against vehicles, and still not terrible against GEQ and MEQ.

Thanks for all the work. I want a stalker but 50 for one model is just high. I might see about a used one with twin heavy gauss cannon.

 Techpriestsupport wrote:
Thanks for all the work. I want a stalker but 50 for one model is just high. I might see about a used one with twin heavy gauss cannon.

If you have a spare Barge and some Tyranid bits, you could do what I did and make your own:

That's kinda cool and I can almost see a justification for it as in a cryptek biomancer experiments with integrating flesh to necron tech...

I was thinking of using this as a counts as stalker.

https://icv2.com/images/article_thumbs/650x650_e624eaf47ffb411720a5c916b05d4e9181ba63dc599ad4698eb244a9.jpg

 Techpriestsupport wrote:
Thanks for all the work. I want a stalker but 50 for one model is just high. I might see about a used one with twin heavy gauss cannon.

Don't get me wrong, the Barge is still solid. If it's what you have, it will get some solid results. The point cost reduction helped it a ton.

How does one Gauss Cannon do an average of 1,4 unsaved wounds against Terminators? 3 shots, 2 hits, 1,33 wounds, 0,89 unsaved wounds, assuming the Terminator is at full wounds it kills it two out of three times, so an average damage of (1+2+2)/3=1,67. 0,89*1,67=1,48 damage. I guess 1,4 may be right with the reduced chance of killing more than 1 because of the chance of one being left alive with 1 wound by the first or second shot and the third hit also being unsaved. I'm just curious how you did your math.

The Stalker increases damage output for all following shooting into the target by 17%. That means if you kill a unit 17% of any damage done that phase after the Stalker's shots were done by the Stalker. Let's take a Knight for example, Stalker shoot and your opponent takes 3 damage, you shoot and kill the Knight with the rest of your list. Let's say it had FNP and you ended up doing another 30 damage before killing it, the Stalker is to be thanked for 5 of those damage. That's more than 10 MWBD Immortals within 6" of a Lord after the +1 from Sautekh has been applied. That's only slightly less than 5 Heavy Gauss Cannons re-rolling ones to Hit and Wound. Not taking one is a bad idea if you're at all considering taking down Knights at range.

Full Tesla with Mephrit could be interesting. Its always going to come down to whether you get lucky on 6s, but with normal luck you are getting solid returns versus most infantry when within 12". You have movement 12", so thats a reasonable threat range (and you are not awful outside of 12", but still.)

Shooting say Fire Warriors:
13 shots, 13 hits, 10.83 wounds, 7.222 dead. 50.55 points, divided by 113=44.73% return. Getting over the 40% mark is usually a sign of being viable.

Gauss Cannon is good too - but I feel you have to go Sautekh and you have to split you fire to get the best performance. Which is fine (24" is hardly a low range), but can be fiddly.

 vict0988 wrote:
How does one Gauss Cannon do an average of 1,4 unsaved wounds against Terminators? 3 shots, 2 hits, 1,33 wounds, 0,89 unsaved wounds, assuming the Terminator is at full wounds it kills it two out of three times, so an average damage of (1+2+2)/3=1,67. 0,89*1,67=1,48 damage. I guess 1,4 may be right with the reduced chance of killing more than 1 because of the chance of one being left alive with 1 wound by the first or second shot and the third hit also being unsaved. I'm just curious how you did your math.

The Stalker increases damage output for all following shooting into the target by 17%. That means if you kill a unit 17% of any damage done that phase after the Stalker's shots were done by the Stalker. Let's take a Knight for example, Stalker shoot and your opponent takes 3 damage, you shoot and kill the Knight with the rest of your list. Let's say it had FNP and you ended up doing another 30 damage before killing it, the Stalker is to be thanked for 5 of those damage. That's more than 10 MWBD Immortals within 6" of a Lord after the +1 from Sautekh has been applied. That's only slightly less than 5 Heavy Gauss Cannons re-rolling ones to Hit and Wound. Not taking one is a bad idea if you're at all considering taking down Knights at range.

I don't understand where you got Terminators from at all there. The only numbers are from GEQ (T3 Save5+), MEQ (T4 Save 3+), VEQ (T7 Save 3+), and KEQ (Knight Equivalent, I'm blanking on their numbers. Just woke up.)

The mistake you are making with the reroll ones is assuming that it is always 17%. Diminishing returns are definitely a thing, as shown in the numbers. It's worth taking, I think, but it takes a good bit to make up the difference VS a Barge against GEQ.

It's still a hell of a good benefit against vehicles and knights. I'm just saying that if you're explicitly using it to help against GEQ, it still tends to lose out against Barges.