BA Vanguard Veteran percentages

Here's an excellent comment by Sepharine about the chances of a VV squad launching an assault on the drop. The math gives us a rough estimate of where to drop our VV and how likely our VV are likely to be within assault range (pretty often actually!) in a 'perfect' world. Due to this joy I think the comment needed wider circulation so here we are. Good job Sepharine!

Sepharine:

I want to weigh in on a specific question asked her about VV deployment. Assuming you run 5 (which I believe is the norm?) you have an advantage in the fact that you can expand your deepstrike ring forward or backward and don't have to do both. This means that after you place your initial model and roll for scatter, you can join the other 4 models to the original and essentially make 2 'ranks'.

What this means is that that aslong as the original model you place doesn't end up on within 1" of an enemy, you're good (unless you're deepstriking into a V formation). It also means that if your original model scatters outside of charge range, you can build your second rank to the front and potentially still get a charge. Because a base is 25 mm (just under an inch) you would still be able to assault if your first model was placed 6,98" away from the target unit. That said, no one can measure 1/50th of an inch so we'll make that 7".

So what does this mean? it means you want your initial model to end up atleast 1" away from the enemy and no more than 7" away. Ofcourse, your first model isn't a dot, its on a 1" base itself. so you want the front of the base no closer than 1" and the back no further than 8". This means you should aim to put the front of the first model's base down 4" away from the target unit (assuming you find getting destroyed as bad as not getting the charge).

Now for your question, how often does it go wrong? Well, 1/3 of your scatter die will result in a hit which is easy and safe. Of the remaining the remaining 2/3 that does scatter, half will roll between 1 and 3 which isn't enough to be removed from killzone. That means 1/3 of scatters could go wrong depending on which direction you go.

Target
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You

As a rough guideline, you can scatter up to 3" if you scatter directly into your target (north) or directly away from it (south), 4,24" if you scatter into your target at a 45 degree angle (North east or north west) or away at the same angle (South east or South west. Finally, you can scatter a full 6" if you scatter sideways (directly east or west) aslong as your aren't chasing a single infantry based model.

This means means that you will only fail to charge 2/48 + 4/48 + 2/48 + 4/48 + 2/48 *2/3 = 25% chance not to get the charge. It's not exact but it's close enough to give you an idea, the proper math requires pictures and such.

So in conclusion, VV have a 75" chance to get their charge on the drop if you play them 'risky'. It's important to always deepstrike in the center of any clearing. It's also important to remember that the center is 1" further away from enemy models than you might expect. It's also important to keep deepstrike footprints in mind, you should always use squads of 5 models or of 8 models or more. If you don't you'll create full 'rings' which is bad for your odds of getting in safely.