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Joey wrote:Have we had a clear answer yet on how blobs can deal with MSU mech MEQ (the overwealming majority of armies out there)?
Pretty sure we haven't.

MSU isn't a problem for blob guard. Blobs are big enough that they can pretty easily multicharge stuff. This means lots of frag grenades against a transport wall, and it means that it's pretty easy to get a couple of units trapped in close combat where the blob uses its power weapons on one while the other is tarpitted, and then consolidating in and killing the other when it's done with the first.

The main problem with MSU armies is that none of their individual units are very durable (because they're SMALL units), which means that they are very vulnerable in situations where you get into a durability contest. This is especially true in an army that can pack enough firepower to be able to nearly wipe out any MSU unit with a single battle cannon shot (or whatever), leaving broken fragments of already small squads to get ground down easily in close combat.

Nazdreg- I've said it before, and I'm saying it again mate. One of the best english speaking posters here, both in language and actual post content. Never stop

as no one has read what Ze German has actually said-

-Nazdreg- wrote:But if you only face Anti-Mech-MSU lists, the logical way to play is of course infantry.

Joey wrote:Have we had a clear answer yet on how blobs can deal with MSU mech MEQ (the overwealming majority of armies out there)?
Pretty sure we haven't.

Grundz wrote:No not all mech msu, but the few mech lists are very strong. I still think all infantry, or light mech mixed is a very strong counter meta choice

I was interested in reading this thread in the beginning because my favorite version of the guard army is the blob, but it has really devolved into a yelling match between people who clearly don't play blobs or don't play people who can fight blobs well. Then of course everyone else jumps in all defensive. I just took an all infantry army (except for one vendetta, as I ran out of heavy weapon teams to make into lascannon teams), to a 1850 tourney and did quite well. I fought a chaos army with two deamon princes, both of whom died in close combat after charging in unhurt 2 game turns earlier one into a 20 blob and the other into a 30. There were also 7 plague marines that got charged by two 20 man blobs and lost 2 marines over 3 turns of fighting. That's unusual, but on 18 power sword attacks I couldn't roll 6's to wound. It happens. Does that mean the blob is bad? No. That just means I was unlucky in that one part of oone game. When 5 chaos marines charged in to help, they all died in one round. In the next game the same two blobs slaughtered a 5 man TH/SS termie squad with a combat tac squad to help. Even with bad luck. Although, a single squad of sternguard poped out of a rhino that just wouldn't die and charged a diferent blob. That blob died quickly. Again, the blobs did well dispite less than stellar dice, but what does that really tell you? The last game was to see who would place in the top three and my dice punished me for rolling so well in the first game vs those princes. It was brutal as 8 hive guard blew up everything that wasn't a blob in the first two turns after stealing the initiative, but the sheer staying power let me lose by only a slim margine and had the game continued it would have passed from loss to draw to win. What did I learn, or rather see repeat itself again? The blob is not the be all end all. It trades staying power and massed guns for concentrated killing power and speed. If you leave them to be static units, you will be out maneuvered, but if you move when you should and shoot when something needs to die, your enemy will not be able to run circles around you like they would have you believe. 20 men is compact and managable, and multiples of that let's you be flexible, but very bad luck can see that squad vanish fast, to anything, so it better be supported. Where 30-40 men will out last almost anything, riding out bad luck with staying power.

The blob guard is more like a different army than a subset of the imperial guard. It needs to be balanced to take on all comers and then it will perform only as good as your playing ability can make it. And please, enoough blind loud rhetoric. That doesn't help anyone. If I've seen a single wolf lord termie with a TT/SS eat half a tyranid army for breakfast and end up unhurt only to see it charge 2 hive guard and roll 3 ones on it's saves and die before swinging, you better believe I've seen a blob eat and spit out close combat specialists and die in droves to the least close combat oriented units possible in back to back games.

Ailaros wrote:

Joey wrote:Have we had a clear answer yet on how blobs can deal with MSU mech MEQ (the overwealming majority of armies out there)?
Pretty sure we haven't.

MSU isn't a problem for blob guard. Blobs are big enough that they can pretty easily multicharge stuff. This means lots of frag grenades against a transport wall, and it means that it's pretty easy to get a couple of units trapped in close combat where the blob uses its power weapons on one while the other is tarpitted, and then consolidating in and killing the other when it's done with the first.

The main problem with MSU armies is that none of their individual units are very durable (because they're SMALL units), which means that they are very vulnerable in situations where you get into a durability contest. This is especially true in an army that can pack enough firepower to be able to nearly wipe out any MSU unit with a single battle cannon shot (or whatever), leaving broken fragments of already small squads to get ground down easily in close combat.

I find MSU armies the worst for large guard units. I mean, five marines holding up 20 guardsmen? That could take out a flank and do who knows what. After that there's dreadnoughts (can kill 50 IG with little hassle), Purifiers and then that Necron lord who could take out all the troopers with one attack. I'm trying out a unit of twenty and a unit with thirty in a platoon, but I won't go any higher in a single squad.

Well those 5 marines will not last more then one assualt round. Two are on average dead from the pw. The other three are dead from the 36 other attacks...

And a dred will tarpit a blob all game. Even a 21 man blob will last 5 rounds. Now the rediculous blood talons will wipe a blob.

General_Marshall wrote:I find MSU armies the worst for large guard units. I mean, five marines holding up 20 guardsmen?

They won't for long. As mentioned, just run the numbers. The only way a half a tac squad is being seriously disruptive to a blob is if they're insanely lucky (or the guard player rolls like I do with power weapons...)

General_Marshall wrote:That could take out a flank and do who knows what.

After they've killed a single 165 point unit? Well, that's what I've got the entire rest of my army for.

General_Marshall wrote:After that there's dreadnoughts (can kill 50 IG with little hassle)

But how long will it take them? If the close combat goes on to the end of the game, then it's a wash, pointswise. Plus, it's not like you can't see dreadnoughts getting close to your stuff and, for example, shoot them with meltaguns, or something in the rest of your army.

General_Marshall wrote:Purifiers and then that Necron lord who could take out all the troopers with one attack.

Every unit in the game has at least a couple of hard counters. If you take any unit in the game and put it up against one of its hard counters in a 1 vs 1 in a complete vacuum, of course it's going to lose. That doesn't mean it isn't a good unit overall.

kungfujew wrote:it has really devolved into a yelling match between people who clearly don't play blobs or don't play people who can fight blobs well.

Which is kind of funny, given that I got into playing blobs because of looking at the statistics and the kinds of odds that they run. You don't need to be able to play with blobs well to be able to see the usefulness of them, you've just got to be able to be objective enough to give them a proper look. Flimsy reasoning, logical fallacy, and bad math can make any good unit look bad (or bad unit look good, for that matter), but more objective thinking wins out in general, as it's designed to do.

How many weapons do blob guard bring to deal with land raiders? Most of the guard in my area play mech vets.

If they don't have much, I'm thinking Templars with mobs in LRCs benefitting from preferred enemy would work-If they do I would probably bring shooty termies with lots of assault cannons backed up by guys in rhinos

Meltaguns with BID, melta bombs, Vendettas in hybrid lists.

Ailaros wrote:

General_Marshall wrote:I find MSU armies the worst for large guard units. I mean, five marines holding up 20 guardsmen?

They won't for long. As mentioned, just run the numbers. The only way a half a tac squad is being seriously disruptive to a blob is if they're insanely lucky (or the guard player rolls like I do with power weapons...)

General_Marshall wrote:That could take out a flank and do who knows what.

After they've killed a single 165 point unit? Well, that's what I've got the entire rest of my army for.

General_Marshall wrote:After that there's dreadnoughts (can kill 50 IG with little hassle)

But how long will it take them? If the close combat goes on to the end of the game, then it's a wash, pointswise. Plus, it's not like you can't see dreadnoughts getting close to your stuff and, for example, shoot them with meltaguns, or something in the rest of your army.

General_Marshall wrote:Purifiers and then that Necron lord who could take out all the troopers with one attack.

Every unit in the game has at least a couple of hard counters. If you take any unit in the game and put it up against one of its hard counters in a 1 vs 1 in a complete vacuum, of course it's going to lose. That doesn't mean it isn't a good unit overall.

kungfujew wrote:it has really devolved into a yelling match between people who clearly don't play blobs or don't play people who can fight blobs well.

Which is kind of funny, given that I got into playing blobs because of looking at the statistics and the kinds of odds that they run. You don't need to be able to play with blobs well to be able to see the usefulness of them, you've just got to be able to be objective enough to give them a proper look. Flimsy reasoning, logical fallacy, and bad math can make any good unit look bad (or bad unit look good, for that matter), but more objective thinking wins out in general, as it's designed to do.

Okay true, but in the land of the stormraven dropoff dreadnoughts do whatever they want most the time. I find power weapons a waste for guard, the only one in my army is the one my lord commissar has, and really, its worth next to nothing.

General_Marshall wrote:

Ailaros wrote:

General_Marshall wrote:I find MSU armies the worst for large guard units. I mean, five marines holding up 20 guardsmen?

They won't for long. As mentioned, just run the numbers. The only way a half a tac squad is being seriously disruptive to a blob is if they're insanely lucky (or the guard player rolls like I do with power weapons...)

General_Marshall wrote:That could take out a flank and do who knows what.

After they've killed a single 165 point unit? Well, that's what I've got the entire rest of my army for.

General_Marshall wrote:After that there's dreadnoughts (can kill 50 IG with little hassle)

But how long will it take them? If the close combat goes on to the end of the game, then it's a wash, pointswise. Plus, it's not like you can't see dreadnoughts getting close to your stuff and, for example, shoot them with meltaguns, or something in the rest of your army.

General_Marshall wrote:Purifiers and then that Necron lord who could take out all the troopers with one attack.

Every unit in the game has at least a couple of hard counters. If you take any unit in the game and put it up against one of its hard counters in a 1 vs 1 in a complete vacuum, of course it's going to lose. That doesn't mean it isn't a good unit overall.

kungfujew wrote:it has really devolved into a yelling match between people who clearly don't play blobs or don't play people who can fight blobs well.

Which is kind of funny, given that I got into playing blobs because of looking at the statistics and the kinds of odds that they run. You don't need to be able to play with blobs well to be able to see the usefulness of them, you've just got to be able to be objective enough to give them a proper look. Flimsy reasoning, logical fallacy, and bad math can make any good unit look bad (or bad unit look good, for that matter), but more objective thinking wins out in general, as it's designed to do.

Okay true, but in the land of the stormraven dropoff dreadnoughts do whatever they want most the time. I find power weapons a waste for guard, the only one in my army is the one my lord commissar has, and really, its worth next to nothing.

Well for power blob, you get your sergeant, your commissars and everything with PW and you can get ~20 PW attack on the charge, plus like 80 normal attacks...

slightly off topic, but I've always wondered how a mega-kroot blob would do against a mega guard blob in CC? I'm thinking kroot would win...20 kroot with S4 WS4 3 attacks on the charge, plus one is a shaper meaning +2A +2W +Ld...12 hounds with 3 attacks on the charge S4 WS4 I5 and three krootox with S6 four attacks on the charge and multiple wounds...107 attacks on the charge, I think, with a third of that attacking before the guardsmen and everything being WS4 and 12 attacks wounding on 2+...

Then again...
Blob squad...

certainly A power weapon doesn't do much. What makes power blobs good is that you can take a couple of them and, more importantly, use them turn after turn to slowly grind your opponents down. Power blobs may not kill more than a couple of models in a single turn of close combat, but with all those abblative wounds and the commissar's leadership, they're going to be able to use those weapons for several turns.

Really, you can't think about power blobs like you might think of, say, khorne berzerkers - whose whole point is to be able to do a shocking amount of damage up-front to make up for their relative lack of staying power. Power blobs have a very different way of doing damage - they do it in the form of 40 power weapon attacks over two full game turns of close combat, rather than in the form of all their damage up front.

Like a lot of things in the guard, one of them isn't scary, but several of them applied turn over turn are lethal. Think of the as the DoT army. Well, a DoT army that also has the ability to apply enough up-front firepower to knock out your opponents toys (like stormravens) in the first couple of turns, forcing your opponent into a battle of attrition that they lose.

Ailaros wrote:certainly A power weapon doesn't do much. What makes power blobs good is that you can take a couple of them and, more importantly, use them turn after turn to slowly grind your opponents down. Power blobs may not kill more than a couple of models in a single turn of close combat, but with all those abblative wounds and the commissar's leadership, they're going to be able to use those weapons for several turns.

Really, you can't think about power blobs like you might think of, say, khorne berzerkers - whose whole point is to be able to do a shocking amount of damage up-front to make up for their relative lack of staying power. Power blobs have a very different way of doing damage - they do it in the form of 40 power weapon attacks over two full game turns of close combat, rather than in the form of all their damage up front.

Like a lot of things in the guard, one of them isn't scary, but several of them applied turn over turn are lethal. Think of the as the DoT army. Well, a DoT army that also has the ability to apply enough up-front firepower to knock out your opponents toys (like stormravens) in the first couple of turns, forcing your opponent into a battle of attrition that they lose.

Against a tac squad, a charging maxed out powerblob can do at least as much up front damage as berserkers, the problem is that that's ~400 points or more, which, held up against berserkers charge to point ratio, is pathetic

@Je suis2 au hazard

You didnt get the idea of Ailaros post, did you? Powerblobs dont work as shock infantry. They are good at attrition fights. So the first damage dealt is not most important. Khorne berzerkers are shock infantry. So you can't compare them like that.

-Nazdreg- wrote:@Je suis2 au hazard

You didnt get the idea of Ailaros post, did you? Powerblobs dont work as shock infantry. They are good at attrition fights. So the first damage dealt is not most important. Khorne berzerkers are shock infantry. So you can't compare them like that.

I get the point. I am simply saying that they are not limited to attrition. 20 power attacks and 80 normal attacks on the charge can wipe out entire squads in a turn

Sure, and you can throw a priest or two in there and straken nearby, etc. to make them shock troops of sorts. The problem is that they're never going to be as shock as real shock troops.

Had they some way to charge from 18" away or had higher strength or initiative (or weapon skill), or something, then perhaps. Until then, if you want a proper shock troop, the guard are pretty much limited to rough riders.

Ailaros wrote:Sure, and you can throw a priest or two in there and straken nearby, etc. to make them shock troops of sorts. The problem is that they're never going to be as shock as real shock troops.

Had they some way to charge from 18" away or had higher strength or initiative (or weapon skill), or something, then perhaps. Until then, if you want a proper shock troop, the guard are pretty much limited to rough riders.

Aye, but the point of priests and Straken is to help punch through weaker walls in the enemies defense, caused by a bit of battle cannon fire. This is the Imperial Guard, no one needs shock troops!

Ogryns make great shock troops, and then they die. Did I mention that they also cost a lot, too much. I suppose in a fluffy themed army you could use ogryns as the shock troopers backed up by a guard power blob, but that is very situational and reliant on perfect delivery.

Ogryn are a lot better than all that, but they're not shock troops. What ogryn (led by a lord commissar) are is a condensed power blob. They do about as much damage in the shooting phase, and about as much damage in close combat, and are about as difficult to kill (fewer wounds with higher toughness), but they do it in a much smaller footprint, with better concentration of force. That and they also have a different kind of toughness profile, being more vulnerable to some types of weapons while being able to more or less shrug off other weapons that hurt blobs a lot more.

In any case, though, they're not shock troops. They don't have the mobility or up-front killing power. They kill much more like blobs.

TheLionOfTheForest wrote:Ogryns make great shock troops, and then they die. Did I mention that they also cost a lot, too much. I suppose in a fluffy themed army you could use ogryns as the shock troopers backed up by a guard power blob, but that is very situational and reliant on perfect delivery.

Ogryns are under used. They are shock troopers in a sense, but they still need there targets to be shelled a little before commiting to an assault. That's atleast what I have found.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Ailaros wrote:Ogryn are a lot better than all that, but they're not shock troops. What ogryn (led by a lord commissar) are is a condensed power blob. They do about as much damage in the shooting phase, and about as much damage in close combat, and are about as difficult to kill (fewer wounds with higher toughness), but they do it in a much smaller footprint, with better concentration of force. That and they also have a different kind of toughness profile, being more vulnerable to some types of weapons while being able to more or less shrug off other weapons that hurt blobs a lot more.

In any case, though, they're not shock troops. They don't have the mobility or up-front killing power. They kill much more like blobs.

Okay, you are right, they don't kill with power weapons, but four str 6 attacks each on the charge? They pound enemies to a pulp, who cares if a marine gets an armour save, its still being wounded on 2s.

General_Marshall wrote:Okay, you are right, they don't kill with power weapons, but four str 6 attacks each on the charge? They pound enemies to a pulp, who cares if a marine gets an armour save, its still being wounded on 2s.

Do the math, though. For the price of an ogryn, you could get 6 guardsmen. The ogryn gets 4 S6 attacks that stick .56 wounds on a space marine. 6 guardsmen on the charge get 12 S3 attacks that cause .66. Even when the ogryn get the charge, they're out-chopped by their points in guardsmen in bayonets. Off the charge, things get worse for the ogryn. The only thing that restores the balance killing-wise is that ogryn's guns are assault weapons, so they can shoot and still assault.

Ogryn are killy, but without the ability to charge from 18" away, or a WS or initiative better than your average marine, or some sort of power weapon, ogryn simply lack the up-front killing power to be a proper shock unit. Of course, ogryn are tough as nails and have stubborn and still have lots of medium-strength attacks after the charge, so in the end they're more like power blobs - outlasting their opponents and slowly grinding them down to defeat.

Ailaros wrote:

General_Marshall wrote:Okay, you are right, they don't kill with power weapons, but four str 6 attacks each on the charge? They pound enemies to a pulp, who cares if a marine gets an armour save, its still being wounded on 2s.

Do the math, though. For the price of an ogryn, you could get 6 guardsmen. The ogryn gets 4 S6 attacks that stick .56 wounds on a space marine. 6 guardsmen on the charge get 12 S3 attacks that cause .66. Even when the ogryn get the charge, they're out-chopped by their points in guardsmen in bayonets. Off the charge, things get worse for the ogryn. The only thing that restores the balance killing-wise is that ogryn's guns are assault weapons, so they can shoot and still assault.

Ogryn are killy, but without the ability to charge from 18" away, or a WS or initiative better than your average marine, or some sort of power weapon, ogryn simply lack the up-front killing power to be a proper shock unit. Of course, ogryn are tough as nails and have stubborn and still have lots of medium-strength attacks after the charge, so in the end they're more like power blobs - outlasting their opponents and slowly grinding them down to defeat.

Okay, in theory, but math's not a sure way to test the worth of units. A number is a number, it having a high or low value doesn't matter, so in a sense, with dice you can't count on average rolls being average any more then them being high or low, unless you get into a lot of numbers, but still if using math was a way to win warhammer most of the time, I for one would not play it at all. I'll admit, it can help in some cases, but basing the game of pure math is a bunch of rubbish, if it was that way it would be two people with stats sheets reading off averages across a table. Once again not trying to sound rude.

Mathhammer can yield surprising results, which can add a whole new tactical dimension, but I agree, there are factors BEYOND simply the statline, as literally every unit in the game has additional rules.

The fact that (my triple checked mathhammer revealed) Lysander will, on average, beat Marneus Calgar in assault does not necessarily mean he's better...except maybe points wise...

General_Marshall wrote:Okay, in theory, but math's not a sure way to test the worth of units.

Statistics are a way of objectively measuring the quality of things in 40k, and comparing them to other things.

If you have another way of objectively determining the quality of units, I'd like to hear it.

Statistics are a way of objectively measuring the quality of things in 40k, and comparing them to other things.

Yep this is true. Math is a tool to judge force balances properly. (I have a squad of 20 guardsmen, I could assault 10 Marines, what will happen? Is the assault worth it? Do I need preparing fire? How much do I need to "adjust" the marines squads size? Can I detach some firepower to it?)
Math is also of good use when creating army lists. (Against what do I have to prepare my army and which tools (units, unit combinations) work best to deal with challenges I have to expect?)

But this math shouldnt reduce itself to strength and toughness. It is important that a unit can fulfil a certain task. If it reliably does this, the unit has quality. And the "task" is not necessarily: "Kill that specific unit". If it were so, we would see armies consisting of drop podding sternguard.

A good example is the ork buggy. An ork buggy has a quite reliable S8-weapon. But the weapon is not the only strength it has. It doesnt seem very durable (AV10 open topped) but in a squadron of 3 supported by a KFF it is very tough for a small number of points.
Now to the task. A buggy is a vehicle. A vehicle is impassable terrain, so if you create a buggy wall in front of a wagon/kan wall the buggy has a big task. He has to keep every enemy unit out of 6" of the battlewagons. Then the danger of getting meltad is close to 0. In addition they can shoot s8 shots on vehicles and block assault lines and movement possibilities. They are the flank guard of a possible offensive assault and buffer against enemy offensives (and a quite effective one I might add due to being a fast vehicle with a 4+ cover save regardless of terrain).
It increases its effectiveness in combination with battlewagons with assault units inside and Kans to provide s6 blast weapons and cc counter. If I would reduce the buggy to just a random unit with 3 tl rokkitz I wouldn't do them justice. Its quality goes beyond just shooting the weapon.

Ailaros wrote:

General_Marshall wrote:Okay, in theory, but math's not a sure way to test the worth of units.

Statistics are a way of objectively measuring the quality of things in 40k, and comparing them to other things.

If you have another way of objectively determining the quality of units, I'd like to hear it.

Yeah, I buy it or proxy it, and play a few games with some friends to see how the unit works. If I like it or its fun, I keep it, if not I don't. More fun that way. Expecting certain resaults consistantlly (even poor ones) from units leads to failure.

One thing many aren't taking into account here is the psychological factor that blobs play. Often when running my 31 man blob i'll get them locked into combat with a unit, and then the opposing general will actually send MORE units into combat in order to save the unit i already assaulted.

Now with my blob acting as a gravitational force it serves its purpose even if it probably gets wiped out, it keeps units tied up for a long duration while i handle the rest of the players army. And there is always the chance that the blob just outright wins via mass #'s.

General_Marshall wrote:

Ailaros wrote:

General_Marshall wrote:Okay, in theory, but math's not a sure way to test the worth of units.

Statistics are a way of objectively measuring the quality of things in 40k, and comparing them to other things.

If you have another way of objectively determining the quality of units, I'd like to hear it.

Yeah, I buy it or proxy it, and play a few games with some friends to see how the unit works. If I like it or its fun, I keep it, if not I don't. More fun that way. Expecting certain resaults consistantlly (even poor ones) from units leads to failure.

The only way of emulating maths' efficiency would be to play a few hundred games where the exact same situation cropped up every game.
Whereas maths takes what, a couple of minutes?
It's not maths vs experience. 40k is a numbers game, therefore, maths applies.

Joey wrote:The only way of emulating maths' efficiency would be to play a few hundred games where the exact same situation cropped up every game.
Where as maths takes what, a couple of minutes?
It's not maths vs experience. 40k is a numbers game, therefore, maths applies.

IMHO, it takes both experience and math to make a decent army/list. Probability and statistics are great for the on-the-fly moments during a game, but the experience of using units should dictate the form of your army list. After reading Ailaros' reports, he pruned alot of units from his list because of bad experiences (Ogryns, Priests, etc.) and opted for units that fared better in his experience.

Probability in a vaccuum is rather pointless.

The other problem, I think, is that some players lean on math hammer too much and expect the law of averages to remain in their favor, which, majority of the time, doesn't happen. Then they're mystified on how a unit could do so poorly when, on paper, they're a competitive unit.

40K is a dice game, therefore, the math only goes so far before your luck decides for you.

Maths is alright to give you a general idea of how a unit should preform, but in practise results will vary greatly.
20v10 on a charge looks good in numbers, but in reality it'll be more like 13v7 charging through cover of which 8 will make it into combat.

It is handy to know how a unit should preform in ideal circumstances, but you'll very rarely get that perfect charge.
So I agree with KplKeegan, both experiance and maths are needed.

KplKeegan wrote:

Joey wrote:The only way of emulating maths' efficiency would be to play a few hundred games where the exact same situation cropped up every game.
Where as maths takes what, a couple of minutes?
It's not maths vs experience. 40k is a numbers game, therefore, maths applies.

IMHO, it takes both experience and math to make a decent army/list. Probability and statistics are great for the on-the-fly moments during a game, but the experience of using units should dictate the form of your army list. After reading Ailaros' reports, he pruned alot of units from his list because of bad experiences (Ogryns, Priests, etc.) and opted for units that fared better in his experience.

Probability in a vaccuum is rather pointless.

The other problem, I think, is that some players lean on math hammer too much and expect the law of averages to remain in their favor, which, majority of the time, doesn't happen. Then they're mystified on how a unit could do so poorly when, on paper, they're a competitive unit.

40K is a dice game, therefore, the math only goes so far before your luck decides for you.

So? Yesterday my Vendetta shot at a tyrannofex. One shot hit, and failed to wound.
Does that mean the Vendetta is rubbish? Nope. I'm still going to take it, because statistically it deals a great deal of damage for what it costs.
I've also shot plasma vets before and had all three plasma guns get hot, die, then fail a morale check and run off the board. Does that mean I'm going to start taking penal legionairres instead? I doubt it.
I think people who poo-poo "mathhammer" probably don't understand probability too well. Which is cool, obviously.