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 NoiseMarine with Tinnitus wrote:

 adamsouza wrote:

 NoiseMarine with Tinnitus wrote:
Necrons?

Said no Necron 8th edition player ever.

When they had FNP saves in 7th sure. Now you just focus fire on the squad and wipe them out before they ever make a roll to resurrect. Also, they neutered Scarab Farms, so it's more of a fun thing than anything you can actually count on.

Are they that bad in 8th? I don't play them myself.

I just remember the utter gakstorm which came with the Decurion being introduced.

Pretty much dead last in the list of major armies for tournaments. I've done okay with them, and by okay I mean 50/50 with my current build, but I don't try to build them as a durable force mostly.

Volkmair wrote:
From the replies so far it looks like as 8th edition stands the durable faction isn't so much of a thing and what could be classed as the durable armies could be only a points change away from loosing that. Which is sad times for the image of units like Terminators wading through a hail of fire.

like i said it is just not termis, it is all 3 wound elite units or troop units. even tanks struggles whit the amount of D6 dmg weps out there.

I've been tooling around with a Tyranid Warriors army with 63 of them. It's been suprisingly resilient since every model has 3 wounds. 189 T4 3+ saves (Jorm), and immune to morale. Certain things take them out quickly, like Guilliman with his 3 automatic wounds in CC. But since I'm taking a bunch of them I can lose some to optimal weapons but keep going.

Weird army thoug, not for everyone.

The difference between 3 and 2 wounds is pretty big. You are double the durable agaisnt all the 2 damage weapons, and theres not so many 3 damage weapons out there.

 Galas wrote:
The difference between 3 and 2 wounds is pretty big. You are double the durable agaisnt all the 2 damage weapons, and theres not so many 3 damage weapons out there.

Agreed. Hellblasters kill half the models they otherwise would and it makes getting through a squad quite a bit harder. And having a 33% chance that a D6 damage weapon won't kill a guy slows down heavier weapon fire considerably.

It's made me start trying to squeeze some Thunder Hammers into my marine lists.

 Insectum7 wrote:
I've been tooling around with a Tyranid Warriors army with 63 of them. It's been suprisingly resilient since every model has 3 wounds. 189 T4 3+ saves (Jorm), and immune to morale. Certain things take them out quickly, like Guilliman with his 3 automatic wounds in CC. But since I'm taking a bunch of them I can lose some to optimal weapons but keep going.

Weird army thoug, not for everyone.

Tyranid warriors are 8-9 points per T4 Sv 4+ wound which gives them fairly decent durability and of course Jormungandr helps. Personally I would probably prefer Leviathan, though. Do you run them with boneswords and glands?

pismakron wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
I've been tooling around with a Tyranid Warriors army with 63 of them. It's been suprisingly resilient since every model has 3 wounds. 189 T4 3+ saves (Jorm), and immune to morale. Certain things take them out quickly, like Guilliman with his 3 automatic wounds in CC. But since I'm taking a bunch of them I can lose some to optimal weapons but keep going.

Weird army thoug, not for everyone.

Tyranid warriors are 8-9 points per T4 Sv 4+ wound which gives them fairly decent durability and of course Jormungandr helps. Personally I would probably prefer Leviathan, though. Do you run them with boneswords and glands?

Right now it's mixed squads of 6 deathspitters and 3 bonesword loadouts for squads of nine. But I'm beginning to angle for just full deathspitter squads because its only 3 points more than boneswords and the damage output of massed deathspitters is proving to be really fierce.

I ran the adrenaline sacs once but frankly just forgot I spent the points on them because I was mostly shooting at everything.

Out of the 3 you said, i say DG

Edit:
But if you want the most durable army? I'd say a Eldar Alaitoc WS/Hornet/Flyer army, you can have an entire army of vehicles all with -2/-3 to hit lol.

Get an HQ, take Outrider with all Hornets, Hornets take WS's as transports, repeat and add a Flyer or 2.

A unit with 10 wounds and 1 model is far more squishy than one with 10 models and 10 wounds. With leadership almost always being negligible, there is nothing to counterbalance the vulnerability to multiwound damage

 Jaxler wrote:
A unit with 10 wounds and 1 model is far more squishy than one with 10 models and 10 wounds. With leadership almost always being negligible, there is nothing to counterbalance the vulnerability to multiwound damage

I agree with this statement. Durability of a unit can mean multiple things, focusing solely on high toughness / wounds creates vulnerabilities.

Since damage does not scale across models, a weapon with 1 attack that does d6 damage does more against a single model than a unit with 10 models.

While high toughness does make it harder to wound individual models, the cost difference usually means you are sacrificing total wounds for the unit. 17 ppm for a Plague Marine might sound good compared to 13 ppm for a Chaos Space Marine until you consider it's really just a 22% better chance to save a wound (combined odds of +1 T and FNP.) You could have 2 or 3 more wounds by taking plain CSMs for the same points.

8th edition really challenges us to answer this question. Is the more durable unit the one with high toughness or more wounds? I feel like larger squads with more models are the answer in most situations.

 techsoldaten wrote:

 Jaxler wrote:
A unit with 10 wounds and 1 model is far more squishy than one with 10 models and 10 wounds. With leadership almost always being negligible, there is nothing to counterbalance the vulnerability to multiwound damage

I agree with this statement. Durability of a unit can mean multiple things, focusing solely on high toughness / wounds creates vulnerabilities.

Since damage does not scale across models, a weapon with 1 attack that does d6 damage does more against a single model than a unit with 10 models.

While high toughness does make it harder to wound individual models, the cost difference usually means you are sacrificing total wounds for the unit. 17 ppm for a Plague Marine might sound good compared to 13 ppm for a Chaos Space Marine until you consider it's really just a 22% better chance to save a wound (combined odds of +1 T and FNP.) You could have 2 or 3 more wounds by taking plain CSMs for the same points.

8th edition really challenges us to answer this question. Is the more durable unit the one with high toughness or more wounds? I feel like larger squads with more models are the answer in most situations.

22% How do you figure that? From the looks of it Plague Marines should be about twice as tough against S4

 techsoldaten wrote:

 Jaxler wrote:
A unit with 10 wounds and 1 model is far more squishy than one with 10 models and 10 wounds. With leadership almost always being negligible, there is nothing to counterbalance the vulnerability to multiwound damage

I agree with this statement. Durability of a unit can mean multiple things, focusing solely on high toughness / wounds creates vulnerabilities.

Since damage does not scale across models, a weapon with 1 attack that does d6 damage does more against a single model than a unit with 10 models.

While high toughness does make it harder to wound individual models, the cost difference usually means you are sacrificing total wounds for the unit. 17 ppm for a Plague Marine might sound good compared to 13 ppm for a Chaos Space Marine until you consider it's really just a 22% better chance to save a wound (combined odds of +1 T and FNP.) You could have 2 or 3 more wounds by taking plain CSMs for the same points.

8th edition really challenges us to answer this question. Is the more durable unit the one with high toughness or more wounds? I feel like larger squads with more models are the answer in most situations.

I agree that a 10W model can be more squishy than 10 models with 1W each. Here the model toughness and how likely it is to hit come into place.
However, MSU can be the best answer in some missions.

Most durable is a question of EHP vs. Cost, and as many others have said the humble guardsman is near the top, it's also worth noting that EHP is a moving target based on weapon used.

ehp = Wounds/(chance to take a wound * Chance to fail a save * chance to fail FnP)

Toughness = PPM/EHP

Assuming a Bolter
Guardsman = 4 / (1/(2/3 * 2/3 * 1)) = 4/2.3 = 1.7 points per EHP

Tactical Marines 13/(1/(1/2 * 1/3 * 1)) = 13/6 = 2.2 points per EHP

Primaris Marine = 18/(2/(1/2 * 1/3 * 1)) = 18/12 = 1.5 points per EHP

Plague Marine = 17/(1/(1/2 * 1/3 * 2/3)) = 17/9 = 1.9 points per EHP

Guardian defender = 8/(1/(2/3 * 2/3 * 1)) = 8/2.3 = 3.5 points per EHP

Necron Warrior = 12/(1/(1/2 * 1/2 * 2/3)) = 12/6 = 2 points per EHP (Assumes they get a single reanimation check, with multiple reanimation checks they get more efficient, with none they are closer to guardian levels of delicate)

So there you have it, primaris marines are the toughest troop choice (out of the ones mentioned).

Some will insist we move the goal post and calculate this as if they were getting shot at with overcharged plasma, but at that point you start running a foul of cost per kill, which is another topic (I'm happy to go into it, but it's a bit off topic for this conversation), but suffice it to say that the higher the cost to kill is the worse the targeting decision is. For example las cannons kill Primaris marines dead, but you are looking at spending about 40ish points to kill 18, which is a not great return on investment.

 Grimgold wrote:
Most durable is a question of EHP vs. Cost, and as many others have said the humble guardsman is near the top, it's also worth noting that EHP is a moving target based on weapon used.

ehp = Wounds/(chance to take a wound * Chance to fail a save * chance to fail FnP)

Toughness = PPM/EHP

Assuming a Bolter
Guardsman = 4 / (1/(2/3 * 2/3 * 1)) = 4/2.3 = 1.7 points per EHP

Tactical Marines 13/(1/(1/2 * 1/3 * 1)) = 13/6 = 2.2 points per EHP

Primaris Marine = 18/(2/(1/2 * 1/3 * 1)) = 18/12 = 1.5 points per EHP

Plague Marine = 17/(1/(1/2 * 1/3 * 2/3)) = 17/9 = 1.9 points per EHP

Guardian defender = 8/(1/(2/3 * 2/3 * 1)) = 8/2.3 = 3.5 points per EHP

Necron Warrior = 12/(1/(1/2 * 1/2 * 2/3)) = 12/6 = 2 points per EHP (Assumes they get a single reanimation check, with multiple reanimation checks they get more efficient, with none they are closer to guardian levels of delicate)

So there you have it, primaris marines are the toughest troop choice (out of the ones mentioned).

Some will insist we move the goal post and calculate this as if they were getting shot at with overcharged plasma, but at that point you start running a foul of cost per kill, which is another topic (I'm happy to go into it, but it's a bit off topic for this conversation), but suffice it to say that the higher the cost to kill is the worse the targeting decision is. For example las cannons kill Primaris marines dead, but you are looking at spending about 40ish points to kill 18, which is a not great return on investment.

Thats fun math. Jorm Tyranid Warriors w/Deathspitter come to 1.32 =
25/(3/(.5 x .333))

One thing thats missing from most of these calculations is morale. Do 7 kills to GEQ and you're actually "killing" 10 (or whatever the numbers come to).

 Grimgold wrote:
Most durable is a question of EHP vs. Cost, and as many others have said the humble guardsman is near the top, it's also worth noting that EHP is a moving target based on weapon used.

ehp = Wounds/(chance to take a wound * Chance to fail a save * chance to fail FnP)

Toughness = PPM/EHP

So durability refers to expected offensive output?

I would have thought it refers to how long something is expected to stay on the table.

 techsoldaten wrote:

 Grimgold wrote:
Most durable is a question of EHP vs. Cost, and as many others have said the humble guardsman is near the top, it's also worth noting that EHP is a moving target based on weapon used.

ehp = Wounds/(chance to take a wound * Chance to fail a save * chance to fail FnP)

Toughness = PPM/EHP

So durability refers to expected offensive output?

I would have thought it refers to how long something is expected to stay on the table.

To use an analogy, it's like gas mileage in cars, it's a rating for the car that tells you something valuable about your car, but is highly dependent on external factors such as speed, traffic, humidity, elevations etc.

Same thing for a units durability, In order to get the ratio of units cost vs the effort required to remove them from the board we need to consider the external factors (IE: the details of the effort to remove them). In order to get a comparison between units we have to use the same measure stick for each unit, we use fixed values (Str 4 AP 0 damage 1) which are common enough to not be edge cases.

Volkmair wrote:
From the replies so far it looks like as 8th edition stands the durable faction isn't so much of a thing and what could be classed as the durable armies could be only a points change away from loosing that. Which is sad times for the image of units like Terminators wading through a hail of fire.

Pretty much. I'd say just play whatever force you like the fantasy of and ride it out. If you like Terminators, play Terminators. You'll have more fun than playing whatever is powerful now when it inevitably gets nerfed down the line.

 Grimgold wrote:
So there you have it, primaris marines are the toughest troop choice (out of the ones mentioned).

Some will insist we move the goal post and calculate this as if they were getting shot at with overcharged plasma, but at that point you start running a foul of cost per kill, which is another topic (I'm happy to go into it, but it's a bit off topic for this conversation), but suffice it to say that the higher the cost to kill is the worse the targeting decision is. For example las cannons kill Primaris marines dead, but you are looking at spending about 40ish points to kill 18, which is a not great return on investment.

As much as I'm not a massive fan of having more Space Marines out there as Primaris seem to be all I'm facing at the moment, units like Hellblasters would be useful in an allied detachment.

Volkmair wrote:
As much as I'm not a massive fan of having more Space Marines out there as Primaris seem to be all I'm facing at the moment, units like Hellblasters would be useful in an allied detachment.

Hell Blasters are solid, but plasma cannon devastators are probably a bit better offensively (better range, more shots). The thing hell blasters have going for them is they bring their own chaff in the form of extra wounds, where as with devs if you add bodies you are watering down the unit. With the current point values, primaris marines are characterized by tough infantry, strong characters, quirky vehicles, and specialized offensive units with some holes in it. For instance they have 1 unit that can take a las cannon, and outside of CC they are dependent on OC Hellblasters to deal with vehicles.

 wuestenfux wrote:

 techsoldaten wrote:

 Jaxler wrote:
A unit with 10 wounds and 1 model is far more squishy than one with 10 models and 10 wounds. With leadership almost always being negligible, there is nothing to counterbalance the vulnerability to multiwound damage

I agree with this statement. Durability of a unit can mean multiple things, focusing solely on high toughness / wounds creates vulnerabilities.

Since damage does not scale across models, a weapon with 1 attack that does d6 damage does more against a single model than a unit with 10 models.

While high toughness does make it harder to wound individual models, the cost difference usually means you are sacrificing total wounds for the unit. 17 ppm for a Plague Marine might sound good compared to 13 ppm for a Chaos Space Marine until you consider it's really just a 22% better chance to save a wound (combined odds of +1 T and FNP.) You could have 2 or 3 more wounds by taking plain CSMs for the same points.

8th edition really challenges us to answer this question. Is the more durable unit the one with high toughness or more wounds? I feel like larger squads with more models are the answer in most situations.

I agree that a 10W model can be more squishy than 10 models with 1W each. Here the model toughness and how likely it is to hit come into place.
However, MSU can be the best answer in some missions.

For the price of most 10w models you could bring 20-30 guardsmen. 67 storm bolter hits are needed to kill them. Against a t5-7 3+ 10 wound model you’d need 90 hits on average. So even if the tank is 50% tougher against the ideal weapon for chaff, against anything with ap or multiwound or higher Str, that tank becomes a who less price efficient to point of getting semi-reliably snuffed off the table with 4 lascannons

 Grimgold wrote:
For instance they have 1 unit that can take a las cannon, and outside of CC they are dependent on OC Hellblasters to deal with vehicles.

Redemptor dread with macro plasma is also solid for tank busting, firing at str 8 or 9 OC. Only 2 damage per shot, but multiple shots.

 Jaxler wrote:
For the price of most 10w models you could bring 20-30 guardsmen. 67 storm bolter hits are needed to kill them. Against a t5-7 3+ 10 wound model you’d need 90 hits on average. So even if the tank is 50% tougher against the ideal weapon for chaff, against anything with ap or multiwound or higher Str, that tank becomes a who less price efficient to point of getting semi-reliably snuffed off the table with 4 lascannons

This is where Cost Per Kill (CPK for short) comes into it. The idea is that you want to use the unit that is can kill the target with the least effort, but before you calculate the cost to kill you need to figure out the Volleys To Kill (VTK).

VTK = Targets Total Wounds/(Chance to hit * chance to wound * Chance to fail save * Chance to fail FnP * average damage (capped at each models max wounds) * Shots per volley)

Using the Your guardsman example with a slight modification for three Aggressors since storm bolters are generally used by units without good offense
VTK = 30/(2/3 * 2/3 * 2/3 * 1 * 1 * 28.5) = 30/8.4 = 3.6

Now that we have the volleys to kill, the rest is pretty easy
CPK = (Attackers point cost * VTK)/Defenders point Cost

Using that same example
CPK = (111 * 3.6)/120 = 3.33 which says it takes three points of aggressors to kill one point of Guardsman, which is not great. However that's before morale, at a 8 LD you can expect to get a total of 12 dead with a single volley, which changes the VTK to 2.5, which gives us a CPK of 2.3, which is ok. However the aggressors have another trick, if they don't move they can shoot twice. With double shot they will inflict 16.8 (call it 17) casualties in a round of shooting, at LD 8 they will loose another 12.5 with morale, for a total 29.5 dead guardsmen in a single volley for a CPK of 0.92 which is just about as low as I've ever seen it.

So what do we do with that number, we need a scale of some kind to put those numbers on. The best way to get that scale is to realize that you have six rounds to table your opponent, so if you took no casualties a CPK of 6 (IE: you are killing a 1/6th of his army per round) would accomplish the job. However you can expect to take casualties, likely lots of them, since you'll have full forces the first round, and next to none of the last round, you'll have 1/2 your forces in an average round. With that in mind we now need a CPK of 3, which is to say you inflict a third of your remaining points of damage per round (EG: if you have 1k points on the board you need to kill 333 of your opponents points).

So with that in mind here is what CPK scale looks like:
3.5+ Bad Match, don't take these shots unless there is nothing else to shoot at.
2.5 - 3.5 Mediocre, it will probably get the job done, but isn't optimal.
1.5 - 2.5 Good, this is the range you should be shooting for as it allows some room for maneuver and objective capturing.
Less than 1.5 Hard counter, Take these shots whenever you can, If your entire army could hit this hard you would reliably table an opponent in the first two rounds.

Seems like a lot of math, and while none of it is complicated, it's not something I would want to do in a shooting phase. Fortunately I've already done it for you, well the mathy parts of it anyway data entry is your job. My google docs spreadsheet already calculates the VTK and CPK, so if you enter your forces statlines, you can enter the targets stats and figure out which unit should kill them. If people like it I'm sure someone will add it to 4chan sheet that I've seen a few competitive players using.

My google sheet is here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1M7tyL0_Ki19gpDOdTMRRTK74FQf4ZKATITPpFT4rWSU/edit#gid=0