Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I was just wondering if anyone had done the math on the expected value of charging two 5-man units compared to one 10-man? It shouldn't be too hard but once you add in full rerolls and CP rerolls it becomes trickier. As an example: some black templar vanguard vets DS 9" away from their target - they can either reroll both dice or just one (if it's two units only one could use a CP reroll) - in this scenario am I better off with 2x5 or 1x10?

I realise the math would be a to do... just hoping someone's already done it or has a program or something that could do it fairly easily. Of course there are other advantages and disadvantages of 2x5 vs 1x10 (flexibility, stratagem use, # of drops, etc.), but I'm just wondering about the expected value of a 9" charge for now

Edit: just realised 2x5 would have a second sergeant, but it's probably accurate enough to just assume the 10 man unit is equivalent in attacks to 2x5

If you take the two separate 5 man squads and have full rerolls from Deep Strike, you basically have a 73% chance one squad will make it to combat.

Q is is one squad enough for what you need? If 1 squad charging in will result in just that squad getting wiped out without doing it's job 1x10 is better. You can be pretty sure one will NOT get it as even with reroll it's 50-50 charge.

tneva82 wrote:Q is is one squad enough for what you need? If 1 squad charging in will result in just that squad getting wiped out without doing it's job 1x10 is better. You can be pretty sure one will NOT get it as even with reroll it's 50-50 charge.

It's a little bit difficult to list build around that concept though because 1x5 may or may not be enough depending on what you're targeting.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:If you take the two separate 5 man squads and have full rerolls from Deep Strike, you basically have a 73% chance one squad will make it to combat.

Yeah 2x5 is definitely the way to go if you just want something in combat (eg. to tie up a shooty unit), but I'm more wondering what the expected in terms of damage output is.

Edit: found a post on reddit from last year that broke down the averages for making 9" charges with various reroll options. From there I worked out the expected value of charging 1x10 should be around 56.5% of their damage output and of 2x5 should be around 60% of the two units' total damage output. Pretty sure I've done that math right, so looks like 2x5 is the way to go