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How many units can you realistically squeeze into a Bobby G castle?

Martel732 wrote:
How many units can you realistically squeeze into a Bobby G castle?

A lot!

Remember only one model from each unit needs to be within 6". So the theoretical maximum is how many bases can fit on the circumference of a circle that is 6" + the radius of Bobby G's base in radius, plus the number of units that can fit within that circle minus G's base.

I would estimate off the top of my head something like 25+ units.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Obviously that's infantry, any vehicles reduce that.

Yet, he seems to be used with vehicles more often.

Also, how many points does he need to buff to be worthwhile? Obviously, there will have to be units outside the buff in order to play objective missions.

I really hate that the most optimal build is to just park a ton of vehicles around one ludicrous character. It is so undynamic and boring.

Would you rather Gladius?

Because I would.

Martel732 wrote:
Yet, he seems to be used with vehicles more often.

Also, how many points does he need to buff to be worthwhile? Obviously, there will have to be units outside the buff in order to play objective missions.

He's only near vehicles because that's the best stuff in the SM codex.

And this is where mathhammer breaks down.

Assuming you're hitting on 3s, and ideally wounding on 4s (meaning, you've got the right S for the right T, and you're not over-killing).

Guilliman chance to hit and wound: (1-(2/6)^2)*(1-(3/6)^2) = 24/36
Chapter Master Captain + Lieutenant: (1-(2/6)^2)*(3/6 + (1/6)*(3/6)) = 18/36

So Guilliman is giving you a slight increase, at a cost of 400 versus 170.

Thus, a non-Guilliman gunline has 1830 points to work with, versus 1600 for Guilliman.

Let's assume that you need 200 points outside of the bubble for Scouts, and literally everything else is wedged inside that bubble.

In the end, that works out to a net advantage of 933.33 efficiency 'score' on your points to 815 for another chapter.

At the end of the day, if the Space Marine tactics applied to everything - not just tacticals and dreadnoughts - there would be much better choices than Ultramarines and Guilliman. His comparative efficiency boost is minor, but because all of the chapter-specific stratagems and tactics are essentially complete garbage, it's worth taking him for this small increase at the cost of stratagems, tactics, etc.

If Raven Guard tactics applied to everything, they would be a no-brainer. If Imperial Fists tactics applied to everything, they would also be a better choice. It's also worth noting that you could take advantage of a better warlord trait for gunlines too. Storm of Fire, for example, would work well as it gives you additional chances at AP which i'm not accounting for here.

 Marmatag wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Yet, he seems to be used with vehicles more often.

Also, how many points does he need to buff to be worthwhile? Obviously, there will have to be units outside the buff in order to play objective missions.

He's only near vehicles because that's the best stuff in the SM codex.

And this is where mathhammer breaks down.

Assuming you're hitting on 3s, and ideally wounding on 4s (meaning, you've got the right S for the right T, and you're not over-killing).

Guilliman chance to hit and wound: (1-(2/6)^2)*(1-(3/6)^2) = 24/36
Chapter Master Captain + Lieutenant: (1-(2/6)^2)*(3/6 + (1/6)*(3/6)) = 18/36

So Guilliman is giving you a slight increase, at a cost of 400 versus 170.

Thus, a non-Guilliman gunline has 1830 points to work with, versus 1600 for Guilliman.

Let's assume that you need 200 points outside of the bubble for Scouts, and literally everything else is wedged inside that bubble.

In the end, that works out to a net advantage of 933.33 efficiency 'score' on your points to 815 for another chapter.

At the end of the day, if the Space Marine tactics applied to everything - not just tacticals and dreadnoughts - there would be much better choices than Ultramarines and Guilliman. His comparative efficiency boost is minor, but because all of the chapter-specific stratagems and tactics are essentially complete garbage, it's worth taking him for this small increase at the cost of stratagems, tactics, etc.

If Raven Guard tactics applied to everything, they would be a no-brainer. If Imperial Fists tactics applied to everything, they would also be a better choice. It's also worth noting that you could take advantage of a better warlord trait for gunlines too. Storm of Fire, for example, would work well as it gives you additional chances at AP which i'm not accounting for here.

It's also worth noting that if you do the math for things wounding on 5+ or worse, Roboute pulls farther ahead. This is why Str 5+ is ideal for roboute lists (hello fire raptors and repulsors), because you don't mind wounding anything in the game on 5s if you get to reroll wounds and it massively increases the damage output of those weapons, which tend to already be the best weapons in the game due to how AP works and how many invuls there are.

 Marmatag wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Yet, he seems to be used with vehicles more often.

Also, how many points does he need to buff to be worthwhile? Obviously, there will have to be units outside the buff in order to play objective missions.

He's only near vehicles because that's the best stuff in the SM codex.

And this is where mathhammer breaks down.

Assuming you're hitting on 3s, and ideally wounding on 4s (meaning, you've got the right S for the right T, and you're not over-killing).

Guilliman chance to hit and wound: (1-(2/6)^2)*(1-(3/6)^2) = 24/36
Chapter Master Captain + Lieutenant: (1-(2/6)^2)*(3/6 + (1/6)*(3/6)) = 18/36

So Guilliman is giving you a slight increase, at a cost of 400 versus 170.

Thus, a non-Guilliman gunline has 1830 points to work with, versus 1600 for Guilliman.

Let's assume that you need 200 points outside of the bubble for Scouts, and literally everything else is wedged inside that bubble.

In the end, that works out to a net advantage of 933.33 efficiency 'score' on your points to 815 for another chapter.

At the end of the day, if the Space Marine tactics applied to everything - not just tacticals and dreadnoughts - there would be much better choices than Ultramarines and Guilliman. His comparative efficiency boost is minor, but because all of the chapter-specific stratagems and tactics are essentially complete garbage, it's worth taking him for this small increase at the cost of stratagems, tactics, etc.

If Raven Guard tactics applied to everything, they would be a no-brainer. If Imperial Fists tactics applied to everything, they would also be a better choice. It's also worth noting that you could take advantage of a better warlord trait for gunlines too. Storm of Fire, for example, would work well as it gives you additional chances at AP which i'm not accounting for here.

but thats the other thing you don't use Bobby G to use the right weapons for a target its to abuse the aura to make heavy bolters and assualt cannons wound like lascannons. So it's hard to really calculate the efficiency of the buff as the list has to be built to maximise abuse of rerolls to be competitive. Like seriously can any other chapter make a repulsor with all s5 s6 shooting work in a tac list?

Ice_can wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Yet, he seems to be used with vehicles more often.

Also, how many points does he need to buff to be worthwhile? Obviously, there will have to be units outside the buff in order to play objective missions.

He's only near vehicles because that's the best stuff in the SM codex.

And this is where mathhammer breaks down.

Assuming you're hitting on 3s, and ideally wounding on 4s (meaning, you've got the right S for the right T, and you're not over-killing).

Guilliman chance to hit and wound: (1-(2/6)^2)*(1-(3/6)^2) = 24/36
Chapter Master Captain + Lieutenant: (1-(2/6)^2)*(3/6 + (1/6)*(3/6)) = 18/36

So Guilliman is giving you a slight increase, at a cost of 400 versus 170.

Thus, a non-Guilliman gunline has 1830 points to work with, versus 1600 for Guilliman.

Let's assume that you need 200 points outside of the bubble for Scouts, and literally everything else is wedged inside that bubble.

In the end, that works out to a net advantage of 933.33 efficiency 'score' on your points to 815 for another chapter.

At the end of the day, if the Space Marine tactics applied to everything - not just tacticals and dreadnoughts - there would be much better choices than Ultramarines and Guilliman. His comparative efficiency boost is minor, but because all of the chapter-specific stratagems and tactics are essentially complete garbage, it's worth taking him for this small increase at the cost of stratagems, tactics, etc.

If Raven Guard tactics applied to everything, they would be a no-brainer. If Imperial Fists tactics applied to everything, they would also be a better choice. It's also worth noting that you could take advantage of a better warlord trait for gunlines too. Storm of Fire, for example, would work well as it gives you additional chances at AP which i'm not accounting for here.

but thats the other thing you don't use Bobby G to use the right weapons for a target its to abuse the aura to make heavy bolters and assualt cannons wound like lascannons. So it's hard to really calculate the efficiency of the buff as the list has to be built to maximise abuse of rerolls to be competitive. Like seriously can any other chapter make a repulsor with all s5 s6 shooting work in a tac list?

Exactly. It's one thing to reroll hits, since it increases the damage of all weapons that roll to hit by the same amount (33%). But re-roll wounds is impossible to balance correctly, which is probably why it is almost nowhere else in the game outside of 1-2 units or abilities that only effect one thing (like doom being like the best power in the game).

Ice_can wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Yet, he seems to be used with vehicles more often.

Also, how many points does he need to buff to be worthwhile? Obviously, there will have to be units outside the buff in order to play objective missions.

He's only near vehicles because that's the best stuff in the SM codex.

And this is where mathhammer breaks down.

Assuming you're hitting on 3s, and ideally wounding on 4s (meaning, you've got the right S for the right T, and you're not over-killing).

Guilliman chance to hit and wound: (1-(2/6)^2)*(1-(3/6)^2) = 24/36
Chapter Master Captain + Lieutenant: (1-(2/6)^2)*(3/6 + (1/6)*(3/6)) = 18/36

So Guilliman is giving you a slight increase, at a cost of 400 versus 170.

Thus, a non-Guilliman gunline has 1830 points to work with, versus 1600 for Guilliman.

Let's assume that you need 200 points outside of the bubble for Scouts, and literally everything else is wedged inside that bubble.

In the end, that works out to a net advantage of 933.33 efficiency 'score' on your points to 815 for another chapter.

At the end of the day, if the Space Marine tactics applied to everything - not just tacticals and dreadnoughts - there would be much better choices than Ultramarines and Guilliman. His comparative efficiency boost is minor, but because all of the chapter-specific stratagems and tactics are essentially complete garbage, it's worth taking him for this small increase at the cost of stratagems, tactics, etc.

If Raven Guard tactics applied to everything, they would be a no-brainer. If Imperial Fists tactics applied to everything, they would also be a better choice. It's also worth noting that you could take advantage of a better warlord trait for gunlines too. Storm of Fire, for example, would work well as it gives you additional chances at AP which i'm not accounting for here.

but thats the other thing you don't use Bobby G to use the right weapons for a target its to abuse the aura to make heavy bolters and assualt cannons wound like lascannons. So it's hard to really calculate the efficiency of the buff as the list has to be built to maximise abuse of rerolls to be competitive. Like seriously can any other chapter make a repulsor with all s5 s6 shooting work in a tac list?

Not really. Better off with full lascannon build in non gman lists. Though I basically always bring the 2 hull las cannons when playing with Gman. You still need the lascannons.

Gman and repulsors have good synergy.
They move about the same speed and Gman can keep them buffed while they both get into effective range. Repulsors can stay with gman all game because they have fly keyword. Plus they give him character protection.

The meta is built around anti-horde right now, hence why G-man and vehicles is a great combination.

Str 5 weapons are the sweet spot. The poster who talked about rerolling wounding on 5’s is spot on. It’s the best. Mostly because those str 5-6 weapons are putting out a ton of shots to reroll as opposed to higher strength weapons who have a lower volume of fire.

I had two separate players lament that they wished I had fewer shots with higher ap. The Riptide player and Knight players couldn’t use their invulnerable save boosting powers because I only ever decreased armor saves by 1. I made them make a ton of 3+ saves as opposed to fewer 3+ saves. It was going to be a 3+ save no matter what weapons I brought so volume won out in both cases.

Wounding on 4s rerolling 1s:

(3/6) + (1/6)(3/6) = 21/36

Wounding on 5s rerolling 1s:
(2/6) + (1/6)(2/6) = 14/36

Would you trade this wounding inefficiency against T7 & T8 for an army wide -1 to hit, a better Warlord trait, and the Raven Guard specific "deep strike" stratagem?

Answer: Yes.

Guilliman doesn't provide a level of efficiency that isn't there, he just provides the best buff considering there are no real other alternatives.

And you're not seeing people spam T7 & T8. Dark Eldar + Eldar Soup doesn't have T8 anywhere, Imperial Guard + Custodes doesn't have anything T8... many meta lists don't bother with it. You'll have issues wounding Knights, and that's basically it from a meta standpoint. And the extra points you pick up can be invested in something that fights T8.

That's basically how my stalkers slowly chew up riptides.

This is what was so scary about the Assault Cannon before CA: huge ROF with decent S and AP-1. That's what makes for a scary weapon these days.

The dissy cannon just throws on -3 ap for extra salt in the wound.

jcd386 wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Yet, he seems to be used with vehicles more often.

Also, how many points does he need to buff to be worthwhile? Obviously, there will have to be units outside the buff in order to play objective missions.

He's only near vehicles because that's the best stuff in the SM codex.

And this is where mathhammer breaks down.

Assuming you're hitting on 3s, and ideally wounding on 4s (meaning, you've got the right S for the right T, and you're not over-killing).

Guilliman chance to hit and wound: (1-(2/6)^2)*(1-(3/6)^2) = 24/36
Chapter Master Captain + Lieutenant: (1-(2/6)^2)*(3/6 + (1/6)*(3/6)) = 18/36

So Guilliman is giving you a slight increase, at a cost of 400 versus 170.

Thus, a non-Guilliman gunline has 1830 points to work with, versus 1600 for Guilliman.

Let's assume that you need 200 points outside of the bubble for Scouts, and literally everything else is wedged inside that bubble.

In the end, that works out to a net advantage of 933.33 efficiency 'score' on your points to 815 for another chapter.

At the end of the day, if the Space Marine tactics applied to everything - not just tacticals and dreadnoughts - there would be much better choices than Ultramarines and Guilliman. His comparative efficiency boost is minor, but because all of the chapter-specific stratagems and tactics are essentially complete garbage, it's worth taking him for this small increase at the cost of stratagems, tactics, etc.

If Raven Guard tactics applied to everything, they would be a no-brainer. If Imperial Fists tactics applied to everything, they would also be a better choice. It's also worth noting that you could take advantage of a better warlord trait for gunlines too. Storm of Fire, for example, would work well as it gives you additional chances at AP which i'm not accounting for here.

It's also worth noting that if you do the math for things wounding on 5+ or worse, Roboute pulls farther ahead. This is why Str 5+ is ideal for roboute lists (hello fire raptors and repulsors), because you don't mind wounding anything in the game on 5s if you get to reroll wounds and it massively increases the damage output of those weapons, which tend to already be the best weapons in the game due to how AP works and how many invuls there are.

Its good to see this pointed out. Gman is crucial for lower strength weapons, but a Lieutenant gets you halfway to Gman if you're looking at 3+ to wound. The optimal weapons wind up shifting around. I stick with lots of Plasma for those 3+s.

I half agree with the invuln thing. I wind up having to punch through cover alot so the extra AP helps. That and those Custodes bikes are rocking 2+ anyways.

Rerolling 1s on a 5+:
(2/6) + (1/6)(2/6) = 14/36

Rerolling misses on a 5+:
(2/6) + (4/6)(2/6) = 20/36

So on the wounding side, rerolling all failed wounds (Gman or DOOM) is nearly a 50% improvement above rerolling 1s - when wounding on a 5+.

Another huge downer for Gman is you still have to fill your HQ spots. The only character that isn't redundant is the libby. Plus we have the worst powers in the game. Where as an eldar player - you take 2 HQ's - you get 2 awesome psychic trees and guess what...you still reroll hits and wounds if you want with a really powerful unit that's better costed than anything in the space marine army.

If Gman was an HQ (he should be) He would be a lot better.

"you still reroll hits and wounds if you want with a really powerful unit that's better costed than anything in the space marine army."
Reroll hits with *a* unit. Reroll wounds targetting *a* unit. Aura allows for far more units to get that benefit.

Bharring wrote:
Rerolling 1s on a 5+:
(2/6) + (1/6)(2/6) = 14/36

Rerolling misses on a 5+:
(2/6) + (4/6)(2/6) = 20/36

So on the wounding side, rerolling all failed wounds (Gman or DOOM) is nearly a 50% improvement above rerolling 1s - when wounding on a 5+.

Yes, and that clearly would not offset good army-wide tactics.

Guilliman is just the most efficient choice because marines are forced to make a one dimensional choice when building their armies, because the tactics are garbage. The Ultramarines tactic is just... so bad.

People prefer 50% more firepower over 100% more durability by a wide margin every time it's come up. So why would people take -1-to-be-hit over 50% more killy on the things they need dead?

Bharring wrote:
People prefer 50% more firepower over 100% more durability by a wide margin every time it's come up. So why would people take -1-to-be-hit over 50% more killy on the things they need dead?

But it's not 50% more firepower, that's an illusion. It's 50% more accurate firepower. Three -2 to hit Thunderhawks would be problematic, rerolls nonwithstanding.

Besides, you don't need wound rerolls to employ double hellfire/double krakk, just hit rerolls.

And frankly if you're using 3 predators you've already got Killshot going for you. Seeing one of them live to bottom of turn 1 would be a colossal boon. Durability is the difference between a predator killshot and 2 crappy predators doing feth all for the game.

Or perhaps 3 vindicators, for the possibility of redundacrunk mortal wounds.

Wounding X% more is X% more firepower, provided all else stays the same. Whether you're hitting 50% of the time, 95% of the time, or even 0% of the time, it's still the same. That's just how math works.

Now, it could be argued that being 25%/33% more survivable (with a -1-to-hit tactic) might be worth more, but with people prefering 50% more firepower over 100% more durability, that's going to be a *really* hard sell.

In the end, things like the ravenguard tactic (and more importantly their stratagem being overpowered) and roboute are the only things holding SM up, even a little bit. We can argue which one is better...but i don't see the point. Things like special characters and chapter tactics are only the last 20% or so of the balance issues, and some of them not being terrible doesn't help to fix the other issues.

Think of it like this: if you removed all chapter tactics, special characters, and stratagems from the game, space marines (and their many iterations) would still be terrible compared to everyone else because they have the least valuable stats in the game, and do not translate well into the edition.

And they will continue to suffer until they either receive a drastic (think 15-20%) points reduction, or massive re-writes to their special rules and abilities.

It's not 50% more firepower.

Because 10 shots can't produce 15 wounds.

It's 50% more efficiency. 50% more firepower is *always* better than 50% more efficiency, because the expected value stays the same, yet the possibility for more damage exists.

Depends on your definition of 'firepower'. I had defined it as "what the guns are going to do". You're using the definition of "Max of what the guns can do". By your definition, your numbers are accurate.

I'm not sure it's widely agreed that potential for damage is greater than reliability at the same expected value. I'm fairly certain most people would take 50% increased expected value of casualties for the same price as 50% increased number of shots. It's still 50% more killing, which is what people have placed above 100% more survivability. The difference in terms doesn't materially alter the tradeoff.

JCD,
If you balanced Marines in a vaccum without special characters/traits/etc, and balanced them against other factions without their specials too, you would then need to make sure applying the specials was even across the whole game. Having 1 fair balance point is hard. But having 1 that transforms into yet another via an asymetric change (even if traits/characters *were* completely identical, they'd impact different factions differently) is insanely *more* difficult.

If you balanced Marines vs other factions *with* their specials, obviously Marines would then be OP with their specials.

The one caveat is that you could, in theory, balance the specials such that they cost what they provide. THis way, you balance with both sides not having specials, then each added character or trait is balanced to not upset that balance. Unfortunately, they keep getting that very wrong (see: Bobby G). And balancing Traits isn't going to happen, as it's really hard to balance free rules.

I really hope they find a balance where SM are balanced whether or not they take Bobby G, and where all their traits are mid-tier. I want a demicompany of any chapter to be a mid-tier army. We're not close to that. I want no special character or army trait to be autotake or autolose.

Bharring wrote:
Depends on your definition of 'firepower'. I had defined it as "what the guns are going to do". You're using the definition of "Max of what the guns can do". By your definition, your numbers are accurate.

I'm not sure it's widely agreed that potential for damage is greater than reliability at the same expected value. I'm fairly certain most people would take 50% increased expected value of casualties for the same price as 50% increased number of shots. It's still 50% more killing, which is what people have placed above 100% more survivability. The difference in terms doesn't materially alter the tradeoff.

JCD,
If you balanced Marines in a vaccum without special characters/traits/etc, and balanced them against other factions without their specials too, you would then need to make sure applying the specials was even across the whole game. Having 1 fair balance point is hard. But having 1 that transforms into yet another via an asymetric change (even if traits/characters *were* completely identical, they'd impact different factions differently) is insanely *more* difficult.

If you balanced Marines vs other factions *with* their specials, obviously Marines would then be OP with their specials.

The one caveat is that you could, in theory, balance the specials such that they cost what they provide. THis way, you balance with both sides not having specials, then each added character or trait is balanced to not upset that balance. Unfortunately, they keep getting that very wrong (see: Bobby G). And balancing Traits isn't going to happen, as it's really hard to balance free rules.

I really hope they find a balance where SM are balanced whether or not they take Bobby G, and where all their traits are mid-tier. I want a demicompany of any chapter to be a mid-tier army. We're not close to that. I want no special character or army trait to be autotake or autolose.

My point is that if you balanced everything without their special rules, you would be 80-90% of the way to balancing them with their special rules.

I think it's unlikely that any code will ever have more than one or two chapter tactics that is "top tier", but i think that if we got to the point where that was the only balance issue the game had, we'd be in a pretty good place.

I really miss the index. I'd pay 17ppm for my DAs to have that balance point back. It felt a lot more fair. And Marines felt a lot more right.

Bharring wrote:
I really miss the index. I'd pay 17ppm for my DAs to have that balance point back. It felt a lot more fair. And Marines felt a lot more right.

You're not serious are you? Conscripts alone proved how bad the index armies are. Then you have issues with Necrons, Deathwatch, Tyranids...

Balance was bad. Seriously.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Bharring wrote:
I really miss the index. I'd pay 17ppm for my DAs to have that balance point back. It felt a lot more fair. And Marines felt a lot more right.

You're not serious are you? Conscripts alone proved how bad the index armies are. Then you have issues with Necrons, Deathwatch, Tyranids...

Balance was bad. Seriously.

Yeah, balance was bad. But relatively speaking marines were in a better spot, so that was fairer right?