I had this thought quite a while ago and posted it a few 40k fora, but I would like to have some more opinions on the idea of giving mutated hull to all rhino’s in a completely mechanized deathguard or thousand sons force.
I know it sounds silly, pouring more points in an already expensive coffin on wheels, but there is a little reasoning behind this idea.
First I’ll try to explain why I think AV 12 is considerably better than AV 11:
Armour 12 negates all strength 5 guns and halves the effectiveness of strength 6 weaponry.
To me it seems that there are quite a few players using strength 5 and 6 guns to counter light armour.
Some examples of strength 5 guns:
1. Heavy bolter ( chaos, marines and imperial guard).
2. Hive tyrant with two twin-linked devourers.
3. Pulse rifle, pulse carbine, burst cannon and smart missile system (Tau)
Examples of strength 6 guns:
1. Assault cannon (terminators, landspeeder tornado)
2. Scatter laser and shuriken cannon (falcon and warwalker)
3. Carnifex with two twin-linked devourers.
As far as I know, the most used platform for the assault cannon is the landspeeder tornado, which also sports a heavy bolter. With mutated hull you reduce the average number of glancing hits per tornado, per turn of fire from 0,78 to 0,00. The number of penetrating hits per tornado, per turn of fire remains at 0,44 (due to the rending nature of the assault cannon).
When you use smoke launchers, which you should, the number of glancing hits drops from 1,22 to 0,44. With which you reduce the effectiveness of the tornado by 64 %.
The question is, is this reduction in enemy effectiveness, worth a 52 % increase in cost?
Of course this depends heavily on your gaming environment, if your main opponents are min-max marines with 6 or 9 tornados, mutated hull seems worth the cost.
I know marines are the dominant army in the warhammer 40k gamer universe and most tournament lists are assault cannon heavy.
Next is my reasoning for upgrading all rhino’s instead of one:
When you give mutated hull to one rhino, that rhino will not attract much fire from mid-strength weaponry (heavy bolter and/or assault cannon be), but your opponent will probably focus some of his dedicated anti-tank weaponry (lascannon and/or missile launcher) on this target. A smart opponent will then direct his mid-strength weaponry at your other, non-mutated, rhino's, which effectively means more of this firepower is used per rhino.
My idea would be to deny your opponent any effective targets for his mid-strength weapons and present him with too much targets for his anti-tank weaponry.
For me this would mean you would have to go for a totally mechanized force and you would have to equip all your rhino's with mutated hull.
The big downside of this idea is that giving mutated hull to all of your rhino's costs a lot of points, this will cost you some of your numbers, the biggest consequence is that your opponent can spread his firepower amongst fewer targets.
Just a random thought:
In a mechanized force with AV 12 rhino's, I don't think you will need to give your predators and/or defilers mutated hull. In my opinion you would present enough (read: too much) targets for all of your opponent’s anti-tank weaponry. The points saved on your predators and/or defilers could then be spent to upgrade your rhino’s.
The next part is a short argument about why I think the deathguard and thousand sons would especially benefit from this:
Even with their enhanced toughness, plague marines die just as easy to strength 7, or higher, weapons as normal marines. By forcing your opponent to dedicate his anti-tank weaponry against your vehicles, I think you deny him the chance to use those weapons against your plague marines. This leaves your opponent with his mid-strength weaponry to deal with your plague marines and against those weapons your troops do benefit from their T 4(5).
The same reasoning is even more true for the thousand sons, but for strength 8 and higher.
Thousand sons squads are extremely expensive, so you don’t field that much and therefore won’t need that many rhino’s, which will help to keep the upgrade costs at bay.
The biggest drawback of this idea is that you are putting a lot of points in non-scoring units without any offensive potential.
In my opinion the points value where this could work would be 1500 points, smaller games there seems to be no room for such an expensive upgrade and in larger games the sheer number of rhino’s would be so big that upgrading them all could easily buy you another squad. At 1500 points you will also meet Godzilla lists, which come with a horrendous amount of mid-strength weaponry.
Just to give you an idea, I put together a rough list incorporating this idea:
Headquarters:
Rex morbus
Chaos lieutenant
Mark of Nurgle
Manreaper
Frag grenades
Total points cost 81
Elites (chosen retinue):
Primi inter pares
Chosen Chaos marine (6)
Mark of Nurgle
Boltpistol (4)
Close combat weapon (5)
Unit icon
Flamer (2)
Aspiring champion upgrade
Powerfist
Deamonic visage
Rhino APC
Mutated Hull
Extra armour
Smoke Launchers
Total points cost 249
Troops:
Contubernium primus
Chaos marine (7)
Mark of Nurgle (7)
Bolter (5)
Close combat weapon (6)
Unit icon
Plasma gun (2)
Aspiring champion upgrade
Powerfist
Rhino APC
Mutated Hull
Extra armour
Smoke Launchers
Total points cost 256
Contubernium secundus
Chaos marine (7)
Mark of Nurgle
Bolter (5)
Close combat weapon (6)
Unit icon
Plasma gun (2)
Aspiring champion upgrade
Powerfist
Rhino APC
Mutated Hull
Extra armour
Smoke Launchers
Total points cost 256
Leves infernalis
Plaguebearer (7)
Total points cost 112
Fast attack:
Contubernium tertius
Chaos marine (7)
Mark of Nurgle
Bolter (5)
Close combat weapon (6)
Unit icon
Plasma gun (2)
Aspiring champion upgrade
Powerfist
Rhino APC
Mutated Hull
Extra armour
Smoke Launchers
Total points cost 256
Heavy support:
Ballista primus
Predator
Autocannon turret
Lascannon sidesponsons
Deamonic possession
Total points cost 145
Ballista secundus
Predator
Autocannon turret
Lascannon sidesponsons
Deamonic possession
Total points cost 145
Total army cost 1500
Do you people think that the benefits outweigh the cost of upgrading all your rhino's?
