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The Allarus can kill the Captain in the shooting phase then charge another unit - something your precious jetbikes cannot do. I was very generous with the math to help the durability of the Captain... arguing 2.5 versus 3 is dumb.

 Primark G wrote:
The Allarus can kill the Captain in the shooting phase then charge another unit - something your precious jetbikes cannot do. I was very generous with the math to help the durability of the Captain... arguing 2.5 versus 3 is dumb.

Can=/=probably will. The math shows that no, on average they fail to kill the captain. If I grab Anydice to math out the probability of him dying...

Okay, chances of doing wounds in shooting are as follows, assuming 2 shots on the grenades each and in range (including Rapid Fire) for everything.

0 Wounds.........100%
1 Wound...........89.96%
2 Wounds.........80.25%
3 Wounds.........60.48%
4 Wounds.........44.31%
5 Wounds.........27.59%

Find the link with the math here.

So they've got about a 1/4 chance of one-shotting the Captain in shooting. Not bad... But when you're paying 2 CP and 3-4 times his points cost, not good.

Often a character has already suffered some wounds so there is that - my point is if they are close enough to shoot they are also close enough to charge so it really doesn't matter unless they do snuff him in the shooting coz then they can go charge another enemy unit.

 Primark G wrote:
Often a character has already suffered some wounds so there is that - my point is if they are close enough to shoot they are also close enough to charge so it really doesn't matter unless they do snuff him in the shooting coz then they can go charge another enemy unit.

In a Custodes list, how else will the character have suffered wounds? The only snipers we have are Allarus, and that's a Stratagem, meaning it's once per turn. If the character is exposed, then the bikes can shoot him just as well as the Allarus can, and they do, assuming a min squad in rapid fire range, the following wounds...

0 Wounds.....100%
1 Wound.......99.54%
2 Wounds.....96.87%
3 Wounds.....89.35%
4 Wounds.....75.58%
5 Wounds.....57.27%

Making them twice as likely to down him in shooting for barely any more points.

Math found here.

I'm starting to feel despite showing evidence you're not going to allow your emotional attachment to the terminators let you admit they're worse than the Bikes, Primary.

I'm still trying to figure out how the captain is not only within 12" despite having to deepstrike 9" away from the unit the captain is hiding behind but he is also somehow already wounded.

It could well be from a Vindicare and I use them often. It could be from other units as well if your army is entirely composed of Custodian units.

 Primark G wrote:
It could well be from a Vindicare and I use them often. It could be from other units as well if your army is entirely composed of Custodian units.

Okay, Soup is a possibility. But at that point, a couple extra Vindicares are FAR more effective at killing characters than Allarus are, since they don't need 2 CP to even shoot them, can hit them from almost the entire board away, and more reliably do damage what with ignoring invulns.

And again-if someone else in your army can shoot the Captain, he's exposed. If he's exposed, 3 Vertus Praetors do way more damage more reliably than 3 Allarus.

Not necessarily to readily discount the advantage of the Allarus to easily. And there are many other types of characters besides your Captain. Sorry but I don't agree with your logic.

I see Allarus as tough dudes with a big target on their heads, so that they can soak up fire that would otherwise be hurting our awesome bikes.

As others have pointed out, if I wanted to snipe out a character, I would bring assassins which I believe do it more efficiently without getting their hands dirty. I'll do it if my opponent makes a mistake of course, but I don't expect them to from the get go

 Primark G wrote:
Not necessarily to readily discount the advantage of the Allarus to easily. And there are many other types of characters besides your Captain. Sorry but I don't agree with your logic.

And no matter what, they're not going to be effective in taking them out. First off, even basic screening means you're 12" or more away, meaning you get 1 shot per Allarus, second off, it costs 2 CP to do this, and third off, it costs well over 200 points to do this.

Hell, let's look at a Commissar. (They have a 4+ armor and 4 wounds, right?)

While they have much better odds of killing him (83.79%) there's still a decent chance of failure, and he's how many points to your investment?

Plus, he's guard. They have screens. If we drop it to outside of 12", you have...

Slightly over a 30% chance. (30.99%)

So please, name a character who is both worth the investment to kill AND capable of being killed in anything approaching a timely fashion.

They will kill a commissar dead one round of shooting. Their guns do d3 damage and reduce armor saves. Did you know that?

 Primark G wrote:
They will kill a commissar dead one round of shooting. Their guns do d3 damage and reduce armor saves. Did you know that?

You didn't answer his question. He gave you the math on it: 83% ish from within 12" and 30% ish from beyond 12. You're very likely to be forced to land more than 12" away when fighting AM. Infantry blobs, screens, chaff, all that stuff will block your deep strike.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Kzraahk wrote:
I see Allarus as tough dudes with a big target on their heads, so that they can soak up fire that would otherwise be hurting our awesome bikes.

As others have pointed out, if I wanted to snipe out a character, I would bring assassins which I believe do it more efficiently without getting their hands dirty. I'll do it if my opponent makes a mistake of course, but I don't expect them to from the get go

I'd be O.K. with that if the Bikes weren't better at soaking fire than the Allarus. You're better off just buying more points of Bikes.

Here's the start of my official campaign: Allarus need another wound. Also, Ballistus should be S5.

I usually don't bring mine in until T3 so I can clear away the chaff.

Ballistus can be S5 if you burn a CP.

 Primark G wrote:
I usually don't bring mine in until T3 so I can clear away the chaff.

Playing the first 2 turns 300+ points down sounds like a mistake.

They come down on T3, more often then not won't make a charge (9" and no re-rolls) so combat, their best place to be, has to wait for turn 4.

The more you type the more I am mystified by your local meta.

We're trying to help you. Slamming a fist down and announcing "I don't see it!" in a sea of math and counterpoints is not a valid position. We may need to move on to a separate topic, at this point.

After some quick math inputs on a spread sheet, the bikes having Fly and +1 toughness along with being almost equal in damage. I bought 4 Boxes.

Having a unit of Allarus sounded good at 1st, but after looknig into it more, i dont think they are worth it.

I am however going to get a Praetor. I also will get some more Assassin's and Scouts.

@ Amishprn86

So what is your mix in % for SM and AC?

"They come down on T3, more often then not won't make a charge (9" and no re-rolls) so combat, their best place to be, has to wait for turn 4."

They can come in off the vexilla dude.

I havent play them yet, so i honestly dont know.

I really want to get a few games in 1st, my Meta is not Net lists, but will run really strong lists that can compete against net lists. Exmaple, our BA player was playing 3 Storm Ravens before they were nerf along with DC and Sguard, 1 smash captain, now he is playing 2 Smash Captains and put extra guys in his Sguard and DC units (he was playing 5man each now 10man each). Eldar using Ynnari with Shiny Spears and Dark Reapers, but he doesnt spam them, just 1 unit of 10 each, WS's, rangers, and Characters.

Its very fun! But IDK if i want more Scouts like 2 units or 3 units, IDK if i want 1 Culexus or 2, and IDK if i want a Vindicare, i feel they need to be played in 2's as 1 doesnt do enough, so i'm not sure if i want 2.

I also have a Xiphon Pattern i might put in, they are costly tho.

Edit: I might add Smash Captain myself (another HQ) with 3 scouts and Culexus as my 1st test. This will also give me 3 more CP.

I go on experience versus mathammer. I am also running a mix of SM and AC. Like I have said I have nothing bad to say about the jetbikes but the terminators have done very well for me every game. I am sure you will figure it all out.

The terms would be competitive if they came with the 4++ every other cata term armor came with (for3 ++ with the detachment benefit), other than that, they only really got DS and the ability to take axes

Id get a box for special characters.

I run a shield captan in terminator armor. If you want a 3++ take some Guardians.

For pure or mostly pure Custodes, how does everyone envisage taking on some of the big scary Daemon primarchs and such?

As it stands we have no access to mortal wounds or ability to modify their invulnerable saves. The high T and W is not an issue on its own but considering the mobility and damage they can do to an army like Custodes, you wanna make sure you can kill one of these things quickly once it crashes into your line. I am particularly afraid of Mortarion, who deletes anything he hits in CC and will be dealing plentiful MW's to your whole Custodes blob each fight phase until you can bring him down. He pops more MW again when he finally goes down.

Based on a bit of quick head maths a unit of Castellan axes will do about 7-8 wounds to a Mortarion/Magnus on the charge, so won't be able to do it on their own (assuming 5 axes, no rerolls but no Miasma of Pestillence/Fab-glam of Tzeench). Most armies can shoot a Daemon Primarch half to death before they hit so the job isn't so hard, but we aren't so lucky with our options there.

Any takes?

I played against Smash Bros last night and killed both of them by turn 3.

 Primark G wrote:
I played against Smash Bros last night and killed both of them by turn 3.

Thats cool, care to elaborate?

Spartacus wrote:
For pure or mostly pure Custodes, how does everyone envisage taking on some of the big scary Daemon primarchs and such?

As it stands we have no access to mortal wounds or ability to modify their invulnerable saves. The high T and W is not an issue on its own but considering the mobility and damage they can do to an army like Custodes, you wanna make sure you can kill one of these things quickly once it crashes into your line. I am particularly afraid of Mortarion, who deletes anything he hits in CC and will be dealing plentiful MW's to your whole Custodes blob each fight phase until you can bring him down. He pops more MW again when he finally goes down.

Based on a bit of quick head maths a unit of Castellan axes will do about 7-8 wounds to a Mortarion/Magnus on the charge, so won't be able to do it on their own (assuming 5 axes, no rerolls but no Miasma of Pestillence/Fab-glam of Tzeench). Most armies can shoot a Daemon Primarch half to death before they hit so the job isn't so hard, but we aren't so lucky with our options there.

Any takes?

There's not good options for either of them in pure Custodes. If you're trying to spam command points, you can always just take a Super-Heavy Auxiliary detachment and bring in Rowboat. He can put one down in melee fairly comfortable (and still let your Custodes re-roll 1's to Hit like a Captain!). Culexi help with Magnus. Mort's just a pain train though. Best strat for a pure force against him is to kite with Bikes and Hurricane Bolters. Just keep any psykers from Warp Timing him.

If you must fight them, remember they have the same weaknesses as us: mortal wounds and weight of dice.

Wardens, Bikes, and Allarus (assuming Wardens and Allarus have axes) all deal with Daemon primarchs just fine, there a threat, but since most people tend to over extend with someone like Morty he is pretty easily dealt with.

Spartacus wrote:

 Primark G wrote:
I played against Smash Bros last night and killed both of them by turn 3.

Thats cool, care to elaborate?

I pretty much castled everything behind a big wall to hide sitting on my objective, there was only two. He has to bum rush me or at best he can tie. I go first and get my psychic buffs up. BTW half my army is in deep strike reserve. My scouts pop out of a building and I use Hellfire scoring 3 mortal wounds on Magnus - he moves up.

Next turn I drop in my Cullexus as a speed bump and he has to deal with it. My Inceptors also come in and but a really big hurt on Magnus. He moves up again but the way I’m deployed he can’t engage much of my army... so he goes for Cullexus and my Redemptor which is what I wanted. Both die but he can’t consolidate into any of my units - Magnus is just sitting there. Third turn I bring in the rest of my reserves - I am able to cast NZ then deep 6 Magnus in the shooting phase. It goes worse for him from there on.

Audustum wrote:


There's not good options for either of them in pure Custodes. If you're trying to spam command points, you can always just take a Super-Heavy Auxiliary detachment and bring in Rowboat. He can put one down in melee fairly comfortable (and still let your Custodes re-roll 1's to Hit like a Captain!). Culexi help with Magnus. Mort's just a pain train though. Best strat for a pure force against him is to kite with Bikes and Hurricane Bolters. Just keep any psykers from Warp Timing him.

If you must fight them, remember they have the same weaknesses as us: mortal wounds and weight of dice.

Sounds like another good excuse to buy Constantin Valdor as a stand-in!

So salvo launchers on bikes. Good? Overpriced? Necessary evil? (For a basically mono bike list I think you need one squad of launchers). Sucks that you get penalized for moving though. Half of me is thinking of just going all hurricane bolters and just punching through the rest with fists