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Yea I used to try and spam rokkits on EVERYTHING in 5th. It worked ish........but mostly not really. They just cost SO much in points and really dont work so well. Points are better spent on bigshootas. Im not even kidding. Im in love with bigshootas, I want their children.

I feel the same way since 6th dropped. I always run three on my BWs and always max them out in boyz squads, aaaannnd I always run them on my koptas now.
More or less the only rokkits I run anywhere anymore are on my buggies when I run four or more.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 KingCracker wrote:
Yea I used to try and spam rokkits on EVERYTHING in 5th. It worked ish........but mostly not really. They just cost SO much in points and really dont work so well. Points are better spent on bigshootas. Im not even kidding. Im in love with bigshootas, I want their children.

 KingCracker wrote:
Yea I used to try and spam rokkits on EVERYTHING in 5th. It worked ish........but mostly not really. They just cost SO much in points and really dont work so well. Points are better spent on bigshootas. Im not even kidding. Im in love with bigshootas, I want their children.

Their children are the shoota boyz... they're good lads.

Definitely gonna make my next Battlewagon a DakkaBox.

Dr. What wrote:
If you have the points, throw a Big Shoota into the squad.

As for Trukks, I only ever run them with a Reinforced Ram, so you will rarely ever be bothered by any terrain (and you can cross the board in 2 turns!)

With a turbo boost, you should be across the board in one turn, unless you're playing spearhead. Can't assault, but it's nice to stick a gang of trukks literally on top of your opponent's deployment.

Anvildude wrote:
Definitely gonna make my next Battlewagon a DakkaBox.

I ALWAYS run my BW's like that. x4 Bigshootas and 1 kannon. The shots are impressive.

Is it better than loading them with rokkits? I've been thinking to do all mine with rokkits in my flash gitz army, because the gitz do some pretty decent anti-infantry, as well as trukk boyz. Or are lootas enough?

OOh, Flash Gitz army? How many Gitz?

Also, my Boomstompa is always loaded with 4 Rokkits, a Killkannon, and a Big Gun of some sort. It goes BOOM.

Well, it's less of a flash gitz ARMY, more of an army made to incorporate a unit of flashgitz effectively. So it'll be five gitz with a dok to start. I can post some WIP pics tomorrow if you want.

 loota boy wrote:
Is it better than loading them with rokkits? I've been thinking to do all mine with rokkits in my flash gitz army, because the gitz do some pretty decent anti-infantry, as well as trukk boyz. Or are lootas enough?

Rokkits are a marginal bit of wargear unless twin linked. Statistically bad, and actually bad. I ran them for a year before it occurred to me that they never did anything (And I tend to roll well).
Load them with big shootas, and use your lootas and big guns for anti-tank.

 loota boy wrote:
Well, it's less of a flash gitz ARMY, more of an army made to incorporate a unit of flashgitz effectively. So it'll be five gitz with a dok to start. I can post some WIP pics tomorrow if you want.

I should mess around with taking my Gitz again as well. Since I dont touch my Heavy Support anymore, those slots are free to use

By the odds you will kill more marines with rockits then big shootas. So if you face alot of meq's I still say stick with rockits. Also you can have a shot at their light and medium tanks. The big shoota is not a good option any way you look at it.

 Crawdadr wrote:
By the odds you will kill more marines with rockits then big shootas. So if you face alot of meq's I still say stick with rockits. Also you can have a shot at their light and medium tanks. The big shoota is not a good option any way you look at it.

I'm not sure I believe the math supports this, but I'm bad at math and can't argue it. Anecdotally, I can say, Big Shootas have out performed Rokkits for me, consistently, for at least a year. Wanna show your math?

 Crawdadr wrote:
By the odds you will kill more marines with rockits then big shootas. So if you face alot of meq's I still say stick with rockits. Also you can have a shot at their light and medium tanks. The big shoota is not a good option any way you look at it.

No you are not correct. Do a full x5 mob of rokkit koptas, shooting at marines, VS a x5 mob of bigshoota koptas. Youll see youre incorrect on that assumption.

1 Big Shoota (Shot by a Boy):

3 Shots = 1 Hit.
3+ to wound = ~.67 wounds
3+ Save = .2 Unsaved Wounds/Big Shoota

1 Rokkit Launcha (Shot by a Boy):

1 Shot = ~.3 hits.
2+ to wound = .27 Wounds/Rokkit Launcha
5+ Cover Save (Assuming the SM player is smart and still uses cover) = 0.19 Unsaved Wounds/Rokkit Launcha

Yea, my Big Shoota Deffkoptas (2 squads of 3 outflanking) glanced to death 2 Rhinos and got lucky on a Predator penetrating hit for a 6 on the damage table tonight. I think he expected 1 unit to do some damage, but not 2 of them to pick off a Rhino each turn 2 and then gang up on the Predator turn 3. That threat range and psychological blow is serious.

Dr. What wrote:
1 Big Shoota (Shot by a Boy):

3 Shots = 1 Hit.
3+ to wound = ~.67 wounds
3+ Save = .2 Unsaved Wounds/Big Shoota

1 Rokkit Launcha (Shot by a Boy):

1 Shot = ~.3 hits.
2+ to wound = .27 Wounds/Rokkit Launcha
5+ Cover Save (Assuming the SM player is smart and still uses cover) = 0.19 Unsaved Wounds/Rokkit Launcha

This is just scratching the surface. Now do a mob shooting 5 TL rokkits, vs mob shooting 15 TL bigshoota shots. Youll see it greatly in favor of the bigshootas. They can glance transports to death pretty regularly.

ALSO, most times, youll just focus fire on the marines outside of the cover. So really giving the marine a cover save is just trying to make the rokkits look even better

 KingCracker wrote:

This is just scratching the surface. Now do a mob shooting 5 TL rokkits, vs mob shooting 15 TL bigshoota shots. Youll see it greatly in favor of the bigshootas. They can glance transports to death pretty regularly.

So this got me thinking, and you're absolutely right- the TL bigshootas are a great option against AV 10. So I decided to go a little past scratching the surface and do some computations here during lunch.
Now, I'm normally not a huge mathhammer fan, as there is far too much complexity in the game to be easily captured with statistics.
But when your goal is to pick TL shootas or rokkits for your outflanking kopters that are designed to hunt transports, well mathhammer can help you choose.

I've spoilered the results for people who don't like looking at graphs quite as much as I do.

So, 5 kopters with TL rokkits vs 5 kopters with TL big shootas. Here's the histrograms showing the probability of taking off a given number of hull points (glance or pen) with both weapons vs AV 10. All results are averaged over 100,000 simulations.

And next the big results. First is the mean hull point damage vs AV 10, 11, and 12.
Next is the prob of destroying a 3 hull point, av 10 vehicle with one volley (including rolling 6s on the vehicle damage table).

Moral of the story- 5 bs kopters are about 10% more likely to destroy a 3 HP, AV 10 vehicle than 5 rokkit kopters. In fact, they have almost a 60% chance of doing so, but they suffer against AV 11 and are (obviously) worthless against av 12.

Against standard t4 3+ MEQ troops, the rokkits will do slightly better if the marines get no cover save. It evens out pretty quickly and the big shootas have the advantage against marines in cover.


Matlab code available on request.

So there are a couple of things the math isn't taking into account:
1)big shootas have an extra 12 " of range
2) big shootas are 10 pts less
3) Rokkits have more penetrating hits. I took the vehicle exploding into account in this analysis, but pens obviously have lots of other nice benefits not captured here.

After looking through this, I think if you're interesting in kopters to outflank and hunt transports and the transports' squishy contents, shootas are a great choice. I think I'm gonna run them this way next time and invest the extra points in more boys. Or maybe a buzzsaw. Overall the big shootas might be great for opening up chimeras and gunning down gaurdsmen.

Also, first post! Long time forum stalker, first time poster.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, please let me know if you find any errors or inconsistencies- I think it's working but there could always be a bug in my calculation code.

ejohns24 wrote:

Matlab code available on request.

So there are a couple of things the math isn't taking into account:
1)big shootas have an extra 12 " of range
2) big shootas are 10 pts less
3) Rokkits have more penetrating hits. I took the vehicle exploding into account in this analysis, but pens obviously have lots of other nice benefits not captured here.

After looking through this, I think if you're interesting in kopters to outflank and hunt transports and the transports' squishy contents, shootas are a great choice. I think I'm gonna run them this way next time and invest the extra points in more boys. Or maybe a buzzsaw. Overall the big shootas might be great for opening up chimeras and gunning down gaurdsmen.

Also, first post! Long time forum stalker, first time poster.

First, interesting math. Thank you.

Second.....yeah its great on AV 10 and guardsmen.....but since most armies tend to lean towards MEQ and their main transports are AV 11......I dont know if its worth the investment to convert koptors to big shooters yet. Unless your getting consistant . But its definately something to consider using.in the future, considering points rockets take up. Thanks.

Keep in mind that koptas are very mobile and get to scout so the they should be able to get to side or rear armour pretty quick even turn 1 is possible.

If you want to glance mech to death with TL S5 why not just run normal bikers

 KingCracker wrote:

Dr. What wrote:
1 Big Shoota (Shot by a Boy):

3 Shots = 1 Hit.
3+ to wound = ~.67 wounds
3+ Save = .2 Unsaved Wounds/Big Shoota

1 Rokkit Launcha (Shot by a Boy):

1 Shot = ~.3 hits.
2+ to wound = .27 Wounds/Rokkit Launcha
5+ Cover Save (Assuming the SM player is smart and still uses cover) = 0.19 Unsaved Wounds/Rokkit Launcha

ALSO, most times, youll just focus fire on the marines outside of the cover. So really giving the marine a cover save is just trying to make the rokkits look even better

a rokkit launcha will get .33 hits so they still do more damage even with giving the marines cover though in most cases you will be focus firing to make sure they dont

Dr. What wrote:1 Big Shoota (Shot by a Boy):

3 Shots = 1 Hit.
3+ to wound = ~.67 wounds
3+ Save = .2 Unsaved Wounds/Big Shoota

1 Rokkit Launcha (Shot by a Boy):

1 Shot = ~.3 hits.
2+ to wound = .27 Wounds/Rokkit Launcha
5+ Cover Save (Assuming the SM player is smart and still uses cover) = 0.19 Unsaved Wounds/Rokkit Launcha

Yaknow every time i see someone try to base the game on statistics and percentages, they lose horribly.
I go with dice over chances. Unless my chance is wicked good, i'll take the dice with bad chances instead of the 1-3 hits with meh chances. As orks, what the heck do we have thats wicked good chance side from a PK wounding something?
Yes, Rokkits can take out AV10-11 better than BS or pierce 3+, but its 1 shot with a crappy hit. And a fortune at that. I'd rather save that 40pts for me personally (4 groups of 20 boyz have been workin well for me lately) and spend it somewhere else. Its also the same reason i kind of dont like the SAG Mek, while awesome, its complete luck and unreliable.

Vineheart01 wrote:


Yaknow every time i see someone try to base the game on statistics and percentages, they lose horribly..

Honestly, that just sounds silly. I tend to find it the other way. Law of averages tends to work. Does it work always? No you always have the outlying chance given a die rolls, and I have seen many of them over the years. But playing the math tends to make your chances better then wild swings with dice.

Yes, but in this method of math hammer, we don't account for the additional chance the big shootas have of getting above average hits. You shoot three rokkits, max you get is three rokkits. 3 big shootas? Their's a whole lot of room for potential improvement.

Right, what loota boy said.

Every time either myself or my friends rely on NOT getting that 1 on a roll for the entire game (low amount of dice, high odds of success) bad things happen. Yea, its a very low chance of utter failure, but when it happens your opponent basically just won or got a huge advantage.

 loota boy wrote:
Yes, but in this method of math hammer, we don't account for the additional chance the big shootas have of getting above average hits. You shoot three rokkits, max you get is three rokkits. 3 big shootas? Their's a whole lot of room for potential improvement.

Specially hen you throw a TL in the mix. Thats why I say feth rokkit koptas, and go strait bigshoota koptas. Again, AT BEST you get 5 hits. With the bigshoota blob, its 15! Ive run the scenarios MANY times over in my down time, and the bigshootas come out on top far more then the rokkits ever did. And in my army, I run planks on my trukks, so they, mixed with lootas, pop vehicles with little problem. THEN the mass of bigshootas make themselves known. Or hell, with the koptas, they can just show up and punch holes in the rear of transports.

I love my Rokkit Koptas. I like to outflank or scout them, depending on what I'm up against (sometimes with a Biker boss in the mix). My favorite joy is when I see 2 Tau Hammerheads in a corner, and my Koptas outlfank behind them. My 90 points took out 300 points of tanks in 2 turns.

i was running rokkit koptas till i realized they really werent doing anything for me outside that turn 1 vehicle popping capability. After that turn, whether i killed something or not, they lost their punch since i was always fearful of them getting plastered before doing anything.

The TL Bigshoota ones, however, can lay waste to infantry QUICK

my koptas love assaulting snipers and other shooty things hiding in the back. Especially if they're in a building with heavy weapons.

you just attack them so they have to pile in and move down a level or 2. But against guard they are really awesome as most of them need 6's to wound the koptas, my last game I sent 2 units running off the table with 1 kopta.

Plus they are denial units so you can always just hide them somewhere, then shoot them 36" to contest objectives on turn 5.

What do you guys use to take care of flyers like helldrakes? AV 12 is very annoying since my boys can't just bombard it with 40-60 shots, so I typically use my rokkit buggies to get rid of them...quite ineffectively I might add. But They're so devastating that they need to be taken care of the turn they're in before they waste the entire army, and my lootas are their primary target (and therefore dead/running)