Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

You know i was looking at my friend's Adepta Sororitas codex and i saw that an exorcist gets only 1d6 shots. Given that the exorcist is like only long range tank killer this seems a little chancy. It almost seems like they should get 2d6 shots just in case a d6 role goes whacky. or maybe they should be given a second weapon. any thoughts?

Yes please! 1D6 shots is powerful enough, 2D6 would be amazing.

2D6 shots would actually be way too powerful IMO- but 1D6 is very chancy, so I'd actually say that 2D3 would be better- it's a little more complicated to roll, but you:

-cap at 6 shots, just like now
-will never get less than 2 shots, which is better than 1D6 which can range from 1 to 6
-will average between 3 and 4 shots, which is both better and more consistent (and thus reliable) than now

Why not D3+3?

Death to all randomness. Make it 3 or 4 shot.

 rhinosaur wrote:
Death to all randomness. Make it 3 or 4 shot.

This please now.

How about making it 6? It is a nice number!

 Desubot wrote:

 rhinosaur wrote:
Death to all randomness. Make it 3 or 4 shot.

This please now.

I agree. I always felt it a little wrong that with good dice rolls a single Exorsist can fire 42 S8 AP1 shots per game. That seems excessive and hell, even if it was only 7 its still on par with a Hammerhead.

I personally think it should be 3 or 4. Thats pretty much equal to a Pred annaliator, which more or less is what the tank is.

The problem with D6 shots is you can't count on it. If it ones and twos all game long it seems unfair to the sisters player. However, if it 5 or 6s two to three turns in a row which has happened many time against me, it really is unfair to the opponent.

MarsNZ wrote:
Why not D3+3?

Derp, I didn't think of that. That would probably work better practically speaking, since it's less work than rolling 2D3.

Have you ever played against a SoB army? They usually bring two of those for their heavy support and they are DIRT CHEAP! compared to any other armies equivalent they are probably the BEST tank killer in the game pt for pt.

 Ghazkuul wrote:
Have you ever played against a SoB army? They usually bring two of those for their heavy support and they are DIRT CHEAP! compared to any other armies equivalent they are probably the BEST tank killer in the game pt for pt.

It's also unreliable in the extreme. S8 is also not that great against AV13, and nearly useless against AV14. Most of the proposal is general a case of "random shots is sort of okay, but I'd like it to be more reliable".

D3+3 is more reliable and predictable than D6- the distribution of the former is simply much smaller. Moreover, having a D6 RoF also means that Exorcists can, much like Marines, experience "the turn", where you roll really poorly and end up losing the game because if it.

Sure, Exorcists can also experience the other end, where you'll roll really hot and blow things up left right and center, but the "swing" between the two is absolutely enormous. Most of what's getting thrown around in this thread so far is generally "it can have some swing, but it's better if it doesn't have such a huge, variable, and unpredictable swing".

i'm fine with giving them melta and calling it a day or maybe an option to switch to skyfire at start of turn.

Just invent a formation that makes them more reliable. Incorporate an underwhelming unit in there and you're good to go.

 Ghazkuul wrote:
Have you ever played against a SoB army? They usually bring two of those for their heavy support and they are DIRT CHEAP! compared to any other armies equivalent they are probably the BEST tank killer in the game pt for pt.

I agree. With two you get a more stable rate of fire. While they may only be S8, they are AP1 IIRC, and can reach across the table. Something lacking in most SoB armies. In addition to their anti tank role, they also do very bad things to elite infantry units.

If they were made more reliable, they would need a significant point bump.

Whiskey its funny how your talking about how unreliable S8 Ap1 is against vehicles with high AV and yet when I was posting about buffing the Lootas Deff Gunz to S8 you said they were already to strong.

Exorcists are highly survivable and you can castle them up in pairs or even a triplet to make them extremely hard to kill. To make them that little bit harder to kill they have the SoF invul save.

 Ghazkuul wrote:
Whiskey its funny how your talking about how unreliable S8 Ap1 is against vehicles with high AV and yet when I was posting about buffing the Lootas Deff Gunz to S8 you said they were already to strong.

Show me where I said this, right now. Because I have never had any opinions whatsoever about Deffguns, nor have I ever said anything about them.

But if you want to know, then I really don't care if Lootas are S7 or S8. They're still a bunch of T4/6+ infantry, so it's not hard to kill them.

You know another thing to toy with is giving the exorcists different weapon modes. IIRC you can use the exorcist missiles as a template weapon. Maybe make it were if you're firing a template missile you get one shot large blast. And another option be where it gets 3 shots automatically with sky fire and you can chance a d6 role for more shots.

But if you wanted either of these modes then you have to keep the original d6 shots against tanks.

Or make an upgrade where you get 4 shots but can chance a d6 role for more.

 koooaei wrote:
Just invent a formation that makes them more reliable. Incorporate an underwhelming unit in there and you're good to go.

I'm pretty sure there was an apocalypse formation which allowed them to 'barrage fire', upping it to 2D6 shots for a turn.

But yes, for the price paid, D6 shots averages out fair - much the same as a triple-lascannon predator, trading the higher strength (good against AV13-14 heavy tanks) for a point of AP (good at getting Explodes! results against smaller AV10-11 tanks). But the randomness is annoying. D3+1 might be better - you still average 3 but vary from 2-4 rather than 1-6.

Madoch1 wrote:
You know another thing to toy with is giving the exorcists different weapon modes. IIRC you can use the exorcist missiles as a template weapon. Maybe make it were if you're firing a template missile you get one shot large blast. And another option be where it gets 3 shots automatically with sky fire and you can chance a d6 role for more shots.

But if you wanted either of these modes then you have to keep the original d6 shots against tanks.

Or make an upgrade where you get 4 shots but can chance a d6 role for more.

this wouldn't be a bad idea, I could walk shots from my three exorcists around the table obliterating everything.