"Dear mr Kirby,
I am new the the warhammer hobby. Your blog is one of my main resources on good tactics, lists and now even hobby tips ;) (The other is YTTH, but don't tell Stelek :p)
Currently I am working on an Ork army... Yes I know, but Orks are fun/failtastic! I am toying with the idea of a Vanilla Marines list though. Because I like thinking up lists just as much as the next guy, I cooked up this:
HQ
1Librarian (Null zone/GoI)100
1Master of the Forge100
Conversion Beamer20
Elites
10Terminator Assualt Squad400
SS/TH
Troops
5Scout Squad75
teleport homer15
Melta Bombs5
sniper rifles
5Tac Squad90
Razorback40
LasPlas35
5Tac Squad90
Razorback40
LasPlas35
5Tac Squad90
Razorback40
LasPlas35
5Tac Squad90
Razorback40
LasPlas35
FA
1Land Speeder50
Typhoon40
Heavy Flamer
1Land Speeder50
Typhoon40
Heavy Flamer
1Land Speeder50
Tornado20
HS
1Dreadnought105
TL Autocannon10
Missile Launcher10
1Dreadnought105
TL Autocannon10
Missile Launcher10
1Dreadnought105
TL Autocannon10
Missile Launcher10
2000
Vehicles10
It combines one of Stelek's critical mass lists with Thunderbubble. The army is supposed to operate without the termies if need be.
Plan behind it: Lots of medium to long range fire power to suppress anything that comes to you. If you want to go to the enemy, infiltrate scouts and use the teleporthomer to reliably gate the termies accross the board.
Tornado is on blocking and disruption duty. You may have noticed I have not chosen for the regular rifleman pattern on the dreads... It is because of math ;)
I know some of your contributing writers will have allergic reactions to mathhammer - "As any troll will tell you, stupid people don't answer to smart comments, so it's necessary to sink to their level before you can defeat them. In other words, time for mathhammer."- Yes, you VT2...
However I likes my stats. And heck, maybe I could teach your pink buddies something. So here goes:
Why a missile launcher is a valid option on a Dread
So BS4 gives you a 50% probability to hit per shot without any rerolls. With reroll the probability increases to 1-P(miss)=1-0.5^2=1-0.25=0.75. However you get 2 shots off with an autocannon. For which we have a chance of missing both: P(miss 1)*P(miss 2)=0.25*0.25=0.0625, rounded to 6%. And we have a chance of hitting with both shots P(hit 1)*P(hit2)=0.75*0.75=0.5625, rounded to 56%. This leaves us the chance of getting only 1 hit: 1-0.5625-0.0625=0.375, rounded to 38%. Still with me? Good...
Unfortunately a hit does not mean you actually damage a vehicle. We need to take both weapon strength and the target's armor value into account. A strength 7 hit has a 67% chance of getting a damage result (either glancing or penetrating, which is all we are interested in when firing to suppress). To calculate the total probability of getting a damage result when shooting with a twin linked autocannon it is easiest to do the exact opposite. Calculate the chance of not doing any damage. This is the probability you miss both shots (6%) + the chance you hit once but do not get a damaging result (0.38 x (1-0.67)=0.1254) + the chance of not doing damage after two hits (0.56*(1-0.67^2)=0.308616) =50%. Crystal clear right? No? Don't panic I have done the work for you:
As you can see, against armor value 10 the Rifleman pattern comes out on top. However, you are likely to face AV11 (Rhinos and Razorbacks) and AV12 (Chimera Front, Battewagon sides). I am sure the pink army already has plenty of tactics ready to overcome this and prove me wrong. Go ahead VT2, I can feel the flame already :p.
In conclusion, I have attempted to give your readers the tools to do their own calculations and optimize lists based on statistics rather than personal experience with unco-operative dice ;)
With Kind Regards,
Jabra
Ps. As long as I have to work for that dr in front of my name (or the PhD behind it), so do you "dr" Kirby ;) Good luck with your future studies. Looking forward to your thesis...
PPs. It my birthday as of 8 minutes ago... WTF am I doing e-mailing you... I am off :p"
Ah stats, so easy to understand ^^. Before we get to your table I'll drop my thoughts on the army list. It's solid but isn't really gaining anything from the MotF other than an extra Dread and since you're also putting him into a Scout squad (which is fine) you've got the associated cost of that unit as well. For one extra Dread. Worth it? Not really. You either want to find more points for Dreads (i.e. drop the Libby) or drop the MotF/Scouts, suck it up with only two dreads and then grab some Preds or Devs (which pretty much ends up being thunderbubble). When using characters like the MotF you need to take advantage of his abilities as much as possible and that means getting 4-5+ Dreads on the table. We can either head in that direction or drop the MotF idea and go with preds instead.
So to the stats which didn't include the most important numbers, what a 2x TL AC dread does compared to a AC/ML Dread. When you compare the differences you'll find the TLAC is better against AV10, in par against AV11 and starts to drop off against AV12. The TLAC Dread therefore obvioulsy has a different role compared to the ACML Dread; the TLAC Dread is better at stopping lighter armor whilst the ACML Dread is better at stopping medium armor. However, the TLAC Dread is always more reliable against all AVs (except 14) due to four shots with re-rolls compared to two with re-rolls and one without. Although the ML's higher strength helps it against tougher targets, the reliability of twin-linked multiple shots is hard to pass up, especially when they are the same points.
This doesn't mean though we should completely ignore the math but we need to apply it proplerly. What the math is telling is is the TLAC Dread is inferior against AV12+ tanks compared to the ACML Dread and if this isn't compensated for by the army, the ACML Dread might be a better choice. However, upon looking at an SM army you'll often find the majority of the other anti-tank weapons are S8+. Multi-meltas/meltaguns on a variety of platforms, lascannons on RBacks/Preds, Missile launchers on Terminators/Typhoons/Tacs, etc. are all high strength anti-tank shots. What the SM army generally does lack is reliable (i.e. multiple shots, twin-linked, etc.) suppression fire. This is what the TLAC Dread provides and whilst it falls off against higher AV targets, the rest of the SM army accomodates for this.
So, in regards to your list I would recommend the 2x TLAC Dreads over ACML because you've got high strength firepower elsewhere and the TLAC Dreads can slow and pop light armor whilst the rest of your force is able to focus on tougher targets as needed.
