Predator Configurations

Determining how to arm you predator for any specific list depends on the roll you want it to fill. Currently the power list involves the "dakka dakka" predator which has the autocannon, heavy bolter sponsons, and storm bolter. This is a lot of anti light infantry firepower for under 100 points. The next configuration is the generalist shown above. It has the TL lascannon for anti tank duty and and HB sponsons for anti infantry. This is a predator for use on the move since often only 1 weapon is brought to bear on a target so I add the dozerblade. This one is a significant point jump at over 130 but can help when you need a little overall boost to your firepower.

Another option is the autocannons with the lascannon sponsons. This is cheaper than the previous one but is for anti tank duty not general support. It is able to engage light and heavy armor. When you are on the move you will have to pick between the autocannon and lascannon. If you are firing at Armor 10 the autocannon is best. At armor 11 they both generate the same penetrating hits but the autocannon generates twice the glances so use the autocannon. For Armor 12 or above the lascannon is best. This tank might come in handy against squadrons of light vehicles like walkers or skimmers.

The final option is the all lascannon predator for anti heavy armor. This one rings in at over 160 points so is not a popular choice. I would probably only bring this for anti monolith duty where melta's are not effective or for opponents spamming nasties inside Landraiders where the stand off weapon range is important. This tank will generate .75 glances + .75 penetrates while stationary against AV 14 not to shappy. This compares to a single multimelta at close range with .1 glances and .4 penetrates assuming 2d6 armor penetration.

Assault Marines and Vanguard Marines: Options Galore

A recent comment on one of my vanguard mini posts got me thinking more about how I use my assault and vanguard marines. Currently I have 2 10 man squads of jump pack assault marines. These units each have a sergeant with a weapon upgrade and 2 special weapons with a power weapon sergeant with 2 flamers for horde control and a powerfist sergeant with 2 plasma pistols for MEQ-MC duty. These units usually only are fielded together as part of my battle company in Apoc games. I also have 2 10 man squads to Vanguard marines which ride to battle in Rhinos. These units have a whole range of upgrades available but I generally only upgrade 3-4 of the marines each differently. My minimum upgrades are Relic Blade Sergeant, Powerfist, Lightening Claw. I then add a meltabomb followed by a power weapon if points are available.

You can think about flipping this though. Assault marines can exchange their packs for a free rhino while Vanguard can buy packs and get the nifty heroic intervention rule. So first we will discuss jump pack marines. Consider a 10 man squad of both types with jumppacks each with a powerfist. The vanguard cost 56% more. Charging into assault they are 21% and 27% more effective against MEQs and and Orks respectively. So you get 50% less wounds to take but only do 30% more damage. Not a good trade off. Adding more weapon upgrades will increase your effectiveness but also your cost. Once you get up to about 375 points (70% cost increase) for the total unit your combat effectiveness against MEQ is approximately increased to the same level as the points difference but against Orks with their already poor armor saves the gains are significantly lower.

Does Heroic Intervention make up for this gap? They did a nice job making a very ironclad special rule covering almost every exploit possible. You have to declare you are trying it before rolling scatter dice, you cannot have a character(so no gate of infinite Librarians moving you around), if you declare you cannot run(no fleeting from Shrike) or shoot even if you end up outside assault range. This will leave you as blast bait if you miss distance for the assault. Since you have to end up within 6 inches of the opponent(hopefully a high value target), you are having to deepstrike close probably into a densely occupied region. This means you probably need to get a hit on the scatter die to get the assault off or avoid the mishap table. Assuming you are not cheating with your dice rolling this makes this process very risky. You can diminish the risk by using locator beacons on drop pods or scout bikes to guide the unit in. The problem here is that you opponent will always get at least a turn to respond to your placement of these before the vanguard arrive. They can either destroy the beacon unit or simply back up a few inches to be more than 13-14 inches from the beacon. Another problem is that drop pods are fixed in their location so if you vanguard are a little late they might not have anyone nearby anyway. With Bikes, if you turboboost them close to the target and the vanguard are late you have essentially wasted a turn of action for the bikes and placed them right into the opponents sights.

Now we will consider Rhino based units ignoring drop pods since I do not see the point of putting an assault squad into a pod. I see giving up the jump pack movement for the drop pod assault and inertial guidence only as not worth it. Maybe on a crowded Apoc or cityfight board. If we again start with 10 marines and fist in a rhino, the veterans are about 26% more expensive but have almost the same gain in hitting power (21% MEQ, 27% Ork). So the unit is essentially starting in the money without the extra upgrades. You might say you would like higher effectiveness difference than cost difference to account for the fewer overall wounds the army has to give. This loss is probably balanced by the fact the combat effectiveness difference is higher when the vanguard recieve the charge or the combat lasts beyond the initial assault.

The Rhino's Red Headed Step Son

So I have a razorback on my christmas list this year. I figure it is only 5 dollars for the turret spure more than a rhino and can serve double duty with a top change. I do need more rhinos. My current razorback runs TL HB so I was planning on doing something different. I was either going to go TL assault cannons or LC+ TL Plasma. I have the ravenwing spure to get the assault cannons from and looked like a pretty easy swap. Now if I am going to take the time to make up a custom turret I need to have a tactical use in mind.

Razorbacks suffer from their 6 man capacity. You can go combat squad on a tac squad plus a character. A good character for this might be a lib with shooty powers along with a plasma pistol sergeant and a plasma rifle for anti MEQ work or a powerfist sergeant and meltagun for anti vehicle. Probably the plasma road is best since the libs anti vehicle powers are poor.

Other squads also come to mind as good candidates for razorbacks. Sternguard since you can have 6 members and still pack a good punch and have 2 special weapons. Command squads can run around with 4 special weapons and feel no pain but only 5 people so you have an empty spot for the required Captain. Honor Guard also are an option. They can be 6 marines, all have bolters so can either due the 12 inch bolter hop or stay inside for the all power weapon assault next turn. I have a Pedro list at 1750 the next 250 could be used for a honor guard unit in a razorback. That list would probably want the Assault cannons since I plan to run 2 vindi's and a predator annihilator.

Maybe I will have to order one of those Landraider terminus upgrade backs to get another turret since the bits dealers run the turrets at about the same price.

Power Weapon or Lightening Claw

With the 5th edition codex, power weapons and single claws have the same cost. Simple analysis suggests that the more base attacks you have the better the lightening claw will be since the lost attack for not having 2 weapons is a small portion of the overall number of attacks. The claw will also work better with higher Toughness targets.


The following numbers are from simple mathhammer of averages:
For T3 targets without a charge bonus the claw is 88% as effective as the power weapon.
This is the only time the power weapon with bonus attack is better.
With Charge on T3 and without charge on T4 they are equal.
Charging a T4 target makes the claw 112% as effective.
It goes up to 137% for charging a T6 creature.

These numbers are for veterans with 2 base attacks, a sergeant with the claw who is not a veteran will far worse. For a captain or master with 3 base on average the claw is always equal to or better than the power weapon for normal targets(ie not grots).

For the full distributions consider 2 cases:

Being Charged by WS4 T3 opponents:
Wounds Caused______0____ 1____ 2____ 3
Power Weapon ___29.6%_44.4%_22.2%__3.7%
Lightening Claw __30.9%_49.4%_19.7%___ 0%

Charging WS4 T4 Opponents:
Wounds Caused_____0____1____2____3____4
Power Weapon __31.6%_42.2__21.1__4.7%__0.4%
Lightening Claw__24___43.9__26.___5.3%___0%

So for offensive minded unit against anyone but Eldar, the Lightening Claw is the better buy. Defensively they are pretty even with the decision based on the toughness of the assault units of the enemy.

So for your vanguard unit in the Rhino with Pedro, a Lightening Claw is going to be better than a power weapon.

Pistol or No Pistol

With the new rules for large close combat weapons and the inclusion of a pistol in all marines gear the question has arisen, should I keep that bolt pistol with the powerfist or trade it in. For a unit like Sternguard, this is easy since their bolters are special, but what about your normal sergeant. Bolters help the units firepower but the pistol still allows you to shoot and charge. What to do? I decided that the captain in the assault on Black Reach has a Relic Blade since the bolter was pretty much set in the model. Most of my early models still have pistols with their powerfist but I am tempted to change one of my scout sergeants or get another new one made. He will have the shotgun and powerfist combo. You can shoot twice and still assault only losing he AP 5 off the rapid fire bolter. This conversion is currently on hold since the plastic shotguns have 2 hands on them and my only metal shotgun on an old scout biker is not quite the angle I want. The new scout bikers have a nice looking shotgun held 1 handed. Maybe need to bike up a box after the holidays and see what I can do.

Space Marine Unique Characters

The new space marine codex is full of unique characters who give the army wide abilities without even being on the board. GW also decided to open the characters up for use for any chapter and allow for different characters to appear in the same army provided only one chapter tactics is used. Some say that the characters are undercosted which may be true overall but seems especially true is that they are undercosted compared to the generic HQ choices in the codex. These were both increased in cost and decreased in stats and or abilities in the new codex for 5th edition 40K. There seems no reason to ever take a Chaplain on foot who is not Cassius when you essential get T6 and Feel no Pain for 10 points plus have three weapons instead of 2.

Ofcourse you need a proper WYSIWYG model for each character so GW might just be trying to get everyone to have 10 different HQ units to build armies with. I have been trying to repurpose other models to make the characters.

Here is my Pedro. Nothing really special. Left over bits from a Space Marine Commander Kit who just needed a combimelta changed to a Storm Bolter and a Banner to represent the Inspiring Presence ability. I will probably base it with a ork skull I have in my bit box.

Here is the mini I will use for Sicarius. With the new costs for power weapons and plasma pistols, I just could not see the advantage to having 3 veterans with both. So 1 becomes Sicarius with the addition of the Halo. Another lost his power weapon for a chainsword.