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Acolytes are the same power level are marines but can take a deamon hammer and a melta pistol, or go in a drop pod and have 10 single model units, each one toting a melta gun. They also have 3 wounds.

Just a warning for anyone doing narrative play, if a guy shows up with acolytes enjoy a 10 power level unit(s) jumping out of a drop pod and shooting 10 meltas.

Try 15PL, it's 5 for the pod. Also known as the cost of having five Sternguard and four multi-melta Gun Servitors jump out of that same pod for about the same amount of firepower (the Marines get 4.67 hits instead of 5, but the Gun Servitors are in melta roll-damage-twice range, which may make up the difference in the long run).

Or you could cut out the middleman and drop five Scion command squads with four meltas each for 15PL, without paying the extra cost for the pod, and keeping BS4 for a much, much more effective random alpha strike melta brigade.

Acolytes are neat, but if you take them as a bunch of one-model units you are just sacrificing turn one outright, and they really don't out-perform specialized units.

(Addendum: Yes, Scion command squads (and full-melta squads in general) do let you cheese the PL system more than you should be able to (that's 420pts, as opposed to 355pts for the Acolytes in the pod or 396pts for the Marines in the pod), but I would suggest keeping in mind that your glorious twenty Scion melta-shots will explode a couple of vehicles really hard and then immediately die, because on average rolls you're looking at about ten dead single-wound infantrymen, the rest of which will be out for blood.)

(Additional note: Consider also that Drop Pods tripled in price because they're really good. We know they are. GW knows they are. And they're actually priced accordingly now.)

(And finally: If you run the Acolytes as single-model units to minimize counter-fire you do need an Inquisitor per six models instead of one per 18 if you ran them in units of three, so you're probably not doing that.)

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Try 15PL, it's 5 for the pod. Also known as the cost of having five Sternguard and four multi-melta Gun Servitors jump out of that same pod for about the same amount of firepower (the Marines get 4.67 hits instead of 5, but the Gun Servitors are in melta roll-damage-twice range, which may make up the difference in the long run).

Or you could cut out the middleman and drop five Scion command squads with four meltas each for 15PL, without paying the extra cost for the pod, and keeping BS4 for a much, much more effective random alpha strike melta brigade.

Acolytes are neat, but if you take them as a bunch of one-model units you are just sacrificing turn one outright, and they really don't out-perform specialized units.

(Addendum: Yes, Scion command squads (and full-melta squads in general) do let you cheese the PL system more than you should be able to (that's 420pts, as opposed to 355pts for the Acolytes in the pod or 396pts for the Marines in the pod), but I would suggest keeping in mind that your glorious twenty Scion melta-shots will explode a couple of vehicles really hard and then immediately die, because on average rolls you're looking at about ten dead single-wound infantrymen, the rest of which will be out for blood.)

(Additional note: Consider also that Drop Pods tripled in price because they're really good. We know they are. GW knows they are. And they're actually priced accordingly now.)

(And finally: If you run the Acolytes as single-model units to minimize counter-fire you do need an Inquisitor per six models instead of one per 18 if you ran them in units of three, so you're probably not doing that.)

Run them as 2 man squads then.

Also, your scions cannot bring all deamon hammers and melta pistols, which is stupid good for any assault unit.

 Jaxler wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Try 15PL, it's 5 for the pod. Also known as the cost of having five Sternguard and four multi-melta Gun Servitors jump out of that same pod for about the same amount of firepower (the Marines get 4.67 hits instead of 5, but the Gun Servitors are in melta roll-damage-twice range, which may make up the difference in the long run).

Or you could cut out the middleman and drop five Scion command squads with four meltas each for 15PL, without paying the extra cost for the pod, and keeping BS4 for a much, much more effective random alpha strike melta brigade.

Acolytes are neat, but if you take them as a bunch of one-model units you are just sacrificing turn one outright, and they really don't out-perform specialized units.

(Addendum: Yes, Scion command squads (and full-melta squads in general) do let you cheese the PL system more than you should be able to (that's 420pts, as opposed to 355pts for the Acolytes in the pod or 396pts for the Marines in the pod), but I would suggest keeping in mind that your glorious twenty Scion melta-shots will explode a couple of vehicles really hard and then immediately die, because on average rolls you're looking at about ten dead single-wound infantrymen, the rest of which will be out for blood.)

(Additional note: Consider also that Drop Pods tripled in price because they're really good. We know they are. GW knows they are. And they're actually priced accordingly now.)

(And finally: If you run the Acolytes as single-model units to minimize counter-fire you do need an Inquisitor per six models instead of one per 18 if you ran them in units of three, so you're probably not doing that.)

Run them as 2 man squads then.

Also, your scions cannot bring all deamon hammers and melta pistols, which is stupid good for any assault unit.

So...run this by me again. You're worried that Acolytes are underpriced on PL because you can get a huge quantity of upgrades for them, yet you're proposing dumping a whole bunch of units that vanish when small arms look at them funny (seriously, I know an Acolyte has three Wounds, but at T3/5+ he's still going to vanish after attacking approximately once), have squat for range and therefore require a bunch of incredibly expensive transports, and at the end of the day can't kill enough Ork Boyz to make their PL cost back, let alone their points cost?

This isn't 7th. Multiple-wound models are at a disadvantage. (Three Guardsmen are better than one Acolyte, because they take exactly the same amount of single-damage shots to kill but can eat way more multi-damage shots.) You don't win games by finding the god gun and spamming it. I know you think this looks terrifying, but I'm looking at your 15PL doomstar (which, I may add, you're overestimating the loadout on; you get one gun OR one melee weapon, not both) and thinking "This is going to land in front of a Conscript/Boyz/Necron Warriors squad and immediately go *squelch*". I mean, you can have a thunderhammer, but you're talking two S6 attacks hitting on 5+, which are going to turn on average .6 of an Ork Boy into really, really fine mulch. Assuming you survive until you get to melee. You could have a meltagun, but you get your one 4+-to-hit shot from outside melta range (best possible target for that is taking about one wound on average), and you need an expensive Drop Pod to do that much with, and then you just die.

So yeah. Acolytes aren't 1PL/model because someone screwed up the PL, they're 1PL/model because someone screwed up the points and they're actually incredibly overpriced if you aren't using PL. And just kind of overpriced if you are.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Jaxler wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Try 15PL, it's 5 for the pod. Also known as the cost of having five Sternguard and four multi-melta Gun Servitors jump out of that same pod for about the same amount of firepower (the Marines get 4.67 hits instead of 5, but the Gun Servitors are in melta roll-damage-twice range, which may make up the difference in the long run).

Or you could cut out the middleman and drop five Scion command squads with four meltas each for 15PL, without paying the extra cost for the pod, and keeping BS4 for a much, much more effective random alpha strike melta brigade.

Acolytes are neat, but if you take them as a bunch of one-model units you are just sacrificing turn one outright, and they really don't out-perform specialized units.

(Addendum: Yes, Scion command squads (and full-melta squads in general) do let you cheese the PL system more than you should be able to (that's 420pts, as opposed to 355pts for the Acolytes in the pod or 396pts for the Marines in the pod), but I would suggest keeping in mind that your glorious twenty Scion melta-shots will explode a couple of vehicles really hard and then immediately die, because on average rolls you're looking at about ten dead single-wound infantrymen, the rest of which will be out for blood.)

(Additional note: Consider also that Drop Pods tripled in price because they're really good. We know they are. GW knows they are. And they're actually priced accordingly now.)

(And finally: If you run the Acolytes as single-model units to minimize counter-fire you do need an Inquisitor per six models instead of one per 18 if you ran them in units of three, so you're probably not doing that.)

Run them as 2 man squads then.

Also, your scions cannot bring all deamon hammers and melta pistols, which is stupid good for any assault unit.

So...run this by me again. You're worried that Acolytes are underpriced on PL because you can get a huge quantity of upgrades for them, yet you're proposing dumping a whole bunch of units that vanish when small arms look at them funny (seriously, I know an Acolyte has three Wounds, but at T3/5+ he's still going to vanish after attacking approximately once), have squat for range and therefore require a bunch of incredibly expensive transports, and at the end of the day can't kill enough Ork Boyz to make their PL cost back, let alone their points cost?

This isn't 7th. Multiple-wound models are at a disadvantage. (Three Guardsmen are better than one Acolyte, because they take exactly the same amount of single-damage shots to kill but can eat way more multi-damage shots.) You don't win games by finding the god gun and spamming it. I know you think this looks terrifying, but I'm looking at your 15PL doomstar (which, I may add, you're overestimating the loadout on; you get one gun OR one melee weapon, not both) and thinking "This is going to land in front of a Conscript/Boyz/Necron Warriors squad and immediately go *squelch*". I mean, you can have a thunderhammer, but you're talking two S6 attacks hitting on 5+, which are going to turn on average .6 of an Ork Boy into really, really fine mulch. Assuming you survive until you get to melee. You could have a meltagun, but you get your one 4+-to-hit shot from outside melta range (best possible target for that is taking about one wound on average), and you need an expensive Drop Pod to do that much with, and then you just die.

So yeah. Acolytes aren't 1PL/model because someone screwed up the PL, they're 1PL/model because someone screwed up the points and they're actually incredibly overpriced if you aren't using PL. And just kind of overpriced if you are.

I believe you get a pistol and a close combat weapon, so you can have an inferno pistol/plasma pistol and a thunder hammer, or force sword/axe or any close combat weapons.

If you really want mob killing, just grab storm bolters on everyone.

Acolytes can't take daemon hammers or inferno pistols.