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So, these things are out now and they look so good I reckon every custodes player will field at least two squads and get hate from everybody. I'm going to ignore the hate and get some but I was wondering what everyone thinks their best lodout is.

Personally, I can't see past the corvae las pulsers. A squad of three armed with these will on average get 6 s9 ap2 shots. At 36" plus the 12" move, these guys have a far reach and enough shots to trouble big av14 hulls like the Spartans you see everywhere. Custodes don't lack the ability to pen av14 from range but it's always with guns that have potential to pen rather than a guaranteed thing. The saturation that 6 s9 shots will get you is about as good as it gets imo - especially when coupled with the dreads that that are armed with corvae las pulsers too.

But is it necessary? The stock weapon is the lastrum bolt cannon which has it's own merits and the cheaper upgrade is the adrathic devastator which does have the potential to pen av14 and causes ID. Does anyone who can mathammer work out whether s9 is more likely to pen av14 than s6 armourbane? The 18" range and gets hot that the adrathic devastator has puts me off. I realise that the corvae las pulser may only end up getting one shot but can get upto 3 whereas the adrathic devastated always has 2.

It's tricky, especially because the Las pulser is 25 points to the devastator''s 5 points but the sheer number of s9 ap2 that a 3 man squad is likely to put out seems to be the best bet for me.

Generally the Devastator is a better option. You have a 30" threat range (12" move plus 18" range), Gets Hot! isn't that worth worrying about with 2+ armour and two Wounds a model, Armourbane S6 outperforms S9 against pretty much all armour values, the Devastator can ID things with T5+...

You save 20pts/model; you may lose out on some range, and the Las-Pulsar is actually more reliable/somewhat better against really high-T models (in 30k that's mostly Thanatars, but if you're in a mixed environment you may run into other T8+ models), but for an all-comers list I'd take the Devastator every time.

(For mathhammer specifics the chance of exploding an AV14 vehicle with a Las-Pulsar is about 4.6%, with an Adrathic Devastator it's about 7.8%, and the Las-Pulsar does an average of 0.56 hull points to the AV14 vehicle as opposed to about 0.7 hull points from the Adrathic Devastator.)

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Generally the Devastator is a better option. You have a 30" threat range (12" move plus 18" range), Gets Hot! isn't that worth worrying about with 2+ armour and two Wounds a model, Armourbane S6 outperforms S9 against pretty much all armour values, the Devastator can ID things with T5+...

You save 20pts/model; you may lose out on some range, and the Las-Pulsar is actually more reliable/somewhat better against really high-T models (in 30k that's mostly Thanatars, but if you're in a mixed environment you may run into other T8+ models), but for an all-comers list I'd take the Devastator every time.

(For mathhammer specifics the chance of exploding an AV14 vehicle with a Las-Pulsar is about 4.6%, with an Adrathic Devastator it's about 7.8%, and the Las-Pulsar does an average of 0.56 hull points to the AV14 vehicle as opposed to about 0.7 hull points from the Adrathic Devastator.)

The Las pulser while more likely to wound high toughness models isn't even necessarily better there either as adrathic has instant death so just 1 wound through and that automata is dead.

But the adrathic is only s6 so you're looking for 6's against a thanatar...

The other thing is, with adrathic you're needing to move into midfield and the bikes aren't as good in CC as other custodes getting I5 at best so dedicated CC elements like emps children can swing at the same time. I'm not disputing your maths but when considering the likelihood you will be putting out 6 s9 shots with the bikes, you can hurt things from turn 1. Plus, to hurt av14, having to roll high on two dice is surely harder than rolling high on 1?

300 points on three models for 3d3 S9 shots. Range shouldn't be an issue- they are on jet bikes.

Or you take the much cheaper Adrathic Devastator, S6, Instant Death, Armorbane, Gets Hot and have a guaranteed six shots every shooting phase.

Math Hammer Time:
BS 5 means misses only on a 1.

Corvis Las Pulser: 36", S 9 AP 2 Heavy d3

Adrathic Devastator: 18", S 6 AP 2, Heavy 2, Instant Death, Armorbane, Gets Hot

Range as noted shouldn't be an issue as they are on Jetbikes and can get anywhere on the board in one turn of moving. What could be an advantage is the Split Fire rule, enabling one of the CLP's to fire at something else across the table, while the AD would have to shoot at something closer.

Both weapons add +1 to the Vehicle Damage Table, so that's nothing. Both are heavy and AP 2.

CLP S 9 means Instant Death on T 4 and below, and generates a range of 10-15 for the vehicle penetration roll. Note, that's -1 vs. Flare Shields, so against a Spartan in the front, it's still going to take a roll of a 6 to glance it. From the side, 5's glance, 6 penetrates. Your average penetration roll will be 9+3=12. Needs only a 2 to wound anything with T 7 and below. That would mean your Primarchs and Machine Dudes.

AD: Always Instant Death, even against a multiwound Terminator or any toughness value target. May not seem like much, but could come in handy (Machine Dudes). Only strength 6, so toughness values become an issue. Could have difficulty wounding a high toughness target (Primarch's, Machine Dudes). Vs. Armor things get very interesting. It has Armorbane. This generates a spread of 8-18, or -1 vs. flare shields so 7-17. The average roll will be 6+7=13. That's on average. Slightly above average and you are glancing AV 14. The odds of a penetrating hit go WAY up vs. the CLP. If you look at the bell curves, mean, and standard deviation vs. AV 14.

The AD is a much better weapon for cracking armor. Even for lower AV's, it's still better.

You always have six shots with the AD. The CLP will average 6 shots, but most likely you will see something like 5-7. And sometimes only 3, or 9. That's hard to plan for and use Split Fire with as you have to decide your targets before you roll the dice. You might get only 1 shot at the side of a Spartan, and 6 shots at the rear of a Rhino.

A note about misses: 1 out of every 6 shots of the AD will be a miss and an overheat. One out of every six armor saves will result in a single wound. So the probability is 0.028 chance of taking a wound due to overheat with the AD. The CLP is twin-linked, which means you have a 0.028 chance of missing with the CLP, and if it does miss, nothing happens. You missed.

For Armor Cracking: The Adrathic Devastator is the way to go. It costs 1/5 the points of the CLP, has 1/2 the range, but can more easily damage high AV targets on average rolls. The range isn't an issue as you are on a Jetbike and can easily move around on the table to get the best angles and the range required. You have about a 3% chance of missing and causing a wound on the firing model. The fixed number of shots makes it easier to plan Split Fire.

For Killing Dudes: It's hard to argue with a S 9 AP 2 shot that can basically wound anything on a 2+. You only have about a 3% chance of ever missing with the CLP, but you are randomly generating 3-9 shots a turn. This makes it considerably harder to plan for Split Fire, and the potential for overshoots increases. The range is very nice- enabling you to sit in the back and lob shots across the board.

Cost: You are paying 5 times more points for one CLP vs. one AD. For the price of outfitting all three jetbikes with CLP, you could add another jetbike.

Final Analysis This unit is already a very high points cost unit for only 3 models. Adding more points for CLP at the cost of an extra jetbike is too much. The obvious choice here is the Adrathic Devastator. Plus, rule of cool. Who else gets to use an Adrathic Devastator? Las is everywhere! Heck, even an Imperial Guardsman has a Las gun! Plus, it's fun saying "Adrathic Devastator". Corvae Las-pulser sounds dumb.

Titanicus wrote:
...The Las pulser while more likely to wound high toughness models isn't even necessarily better there either as adrathic has instant death so just 1 wound through and that automata is dead.

Digging into the math their performance is exactly identical (expected value 0.74 wounds) if you're shooting at a unit of more than one Thanatar (the Adrathic Devastator does 4x the wounds per shot the Las-Pulsar does, but the Devastator has 4x the chance to wound; the Devastator does marginally worse if you're shooting at a unit of just one Thanatar and the 0.9% chance of getting two Wounds doesn't do anything extra). And the Las-Pulsar improves further if you run into something with a better Invulnerable save than the Thanatar's base 5+ Atomantic Shielding (if you borrow a Deredeo with an Atomantic Pavise, for instance).

The major reasoning for using Las-Pulsars over Adrathic Devastators is that the chance of doing nothing is much lower; each Adrathic Devastator has an 82.3% chance of not doing anything, each Las-Pulsar has a 42.5% chance of not doing anything.

That said this is a pretty marginal edge case, and the Adrathic Devastator is still a better all-comers weapon.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Tamwulf wrote:
...The CLP is twin-linked...

Crap. Missed that in my earlier computation.

Technically that also makes the Las-Pulsar the better choice for shooting flying targets, but if you're desperate enough to be shooting flyers with your Jetbikes you're in deep enough poo that it doesn't matter anyway.

What about the range though? 2 units of jet bikes could deploy at the long edges of the board and move up if needing a side shot to bypass a flare shield. The thing with the adrathic destructors is that you need to move into midfield which means you'll be taking charges from turn 2 onwards, reducing your ability to shoot once you're locked in combat - which you will be because the bikes will be such a high priority target.

With the Las pulsers, you can sit back and unleash a lot of shots and act as a counter punch to deep striking units. You're more likely to have more shooting turns if you sit back.

Math wise, the AD is clearly better at penetrating av14 based on the maths here but will you be able to shoot every turn if you're further up the field?

If you're fielding pure custodes, at the moment there isn't any anti air choice so the long ranged Las pulser may well be how you have to deal with flyers alongside the illiastus accelerator cannons...

You don't necessarily need to be arc-dodging around a Flare Shield with your Jetbikes, the tanks may do a better job. It may also not be that worth expending effort to halt the advance of an enemy deathstar early when you could just position to counter-charge, and Adrathic Destructors may not need to even bother arc-dodging around the side of a Flare Shield (two three-man jetbike squads have a 43% chance of exploding or immobilizing a Spartan with a flare shield from the front in a single volley, and will do three hull points to it on average rolls if they don't; add more jetbikes for more fun).

The anti-Flyer argument is actually about as silly as it sounds; you need a thousand points of Las-Pulsar jetbikes to have a reasonable chance of one-rounding a 200-pt Fire Raptor/Storm Eagle. You'd be much, much better off spending 50pts on Adrathic Devastators instead of 250pts on Las-Pulsars and just ignoring the Flyer.

I went up against a mechanicum list (3000 points) and it was a tough match up. More instant death weapons would have really helped. My high strength shooting/hitting units were wounding reliably, but the had high enough toughness where I wasn't instant deathing anything and had to chew through lots of wounds.