Wielding the Mathammer

For anyone following my travails in Warhammer 40k list building, I recently had an change of heart and decided to alter my list somewhat. If you recall, the previous list had about five skimmer chasis on the table at 1000 pts, and three of them were Hammerhead grav-tanks. First let me point out that I don't think there's anything wrong with this: Hammerheads are great tanks, rather tough, and can serve in a variety of roles.

That said, suddenly my Force Organization chart was looking very skewed. I had 1 HQ, 2 Troops, and all 3 allowed Heavy Support options filled up. And while 2 Railheads (Hammerhead with railguns, you might've guessed) are plenty of anti-tank for 1000 pts, they're only putting out 1 shot each turn, and at a BS of 4 (2/3 chance to hit), that's not going to be enough to stop Landraider-spam at 1500 points and up. With all three Heavy Support slots already filled, I also can't just take a fourth tank when I expand the list (and before you ask, I'm not dropping the Ionhead; those things are excellent).

The only real way to get enough anti-tank is to play a Broadside team. Three twin-linked railguns in one slot outshoots as many Railheads as I could bring, and any unit that measures firepower in Monoliths-per-turn is a unit I'd like to field. They're a little more fragile than tanks (or more exactly, they're 'differently fragile') and a lot less manuverable, but that's the price you pay.

That decision didn't really require any statistics, but now that I'm limited to only two tanks, I had to find something else to take up the slack in my 1000 point list. I decided on a team of XV-8 battlesuits, another Tau signature unit.

However, its not as simple as choosing to take suits. An XV-8 costs 25 points, and can come in teams of 1-3. Each suit has three hardpoints, and you must select a weapon or support system to fill each of these slots. There are 5 different weapons systems and 6 support systems, meaning there's somewhere around 990 (11*10*9) different combinations for any given suit.

That's a little daunting, but fortunately only about 20 or so of those are actually useful builds. Also, thanks to a semi-fanatical fanbase, most of these builds have both well-defined abilities and spiffy names. I was dropping one Railhead, which freed up exactly 175 points for my XV-8 unit, another constraint.

Also, I presumably wanted a unit that would take up the slack left without my tank, and then some. At the 1000-point level, heavy AV14 vehicles are pretty uncommon, but thinner-skinned transports are in good supply. Thus, something with good anti-transport capabilities would be a good addition to the list.

The build I ultimately plan to go with is the classic 'Deathrain' suit (hey, its the grim darkness of the 41st millenium, remember?). This is a battlesuit with twin-linked Missile Pods (and one additional slot with something else; I'm torn between targetting arrays and flamethrowers...).

"But wait!" you say. "Deathrains statistically kill fewer Space Marines than Fireknifes or Helios, by a margin of 0.83 MEqs, and aren't as good against vehicles either. Don't you know math?"

And the answer is yes, I do (sort of...). I'm not going to bore you (too late for that) with the number-crunching, but suffice to say that yes, all those things are true. However, that only tells half the story.

First, compare the ranges of the weapons in question. For the missile pod, it's 36", while the fusion blaster is only 12", and is also a Melta weapon (extra armour-pierciness at under 6"). On any given round of shooting, the fusion blaster is more likely to score a piercing hit against any armor about AV10 (at AV10, they tie). However, remember that the missile pod (assuming the fusion blaster suit approachs the target at full speed) can fire three times before the fusion blaster gets even one shot.

Also note that the longer range of the Deathrain means it doesn't need to close the distance with its target, keeping it out of range for return fire and giving it significantly more durability. It will also be more likely to have a target to fire at every turn of the game, unlike dedicated fusion blaster suits.

While deep-striking Sunforges might be spectacular and game-changing, there's also a chance they'll miss their one shot and get cut down by return fire, accomplishing nothing. In statistician's terms, they have a much larger standard deviation in their expected effectiveness, and don't have an evenly-distributed curve (they'll either suck or be great). Deathrains have a far lower standard deviation, and are also roughly normally distributed, so their performance is predictable in any given situation.

In layman's terms, Deathrains are a clutch unit, good for when you absolutely have to get that last wound on a Carnifex or take down that transport before it claims an objective. They might not be statistically high-performers, but you can count on them to get the hits you need, when you need them. And considering I've already got one all-or-nothing railgun shot, my list is more in need of a solid anchor-man than it is a team that will scatter into dangerous terrain right when you need them most.

Also, Deathrains are slightly cheaper.

Ah but because I spent all post talking about 40k stuff that no-one understands, I'll finish off with another poem by Archilocus, that manliest of men.

Ahem.

Feeble now, are the muscles in my mushroom.
-Archilochus

Because only a real man writes about erectile dysfunction.

Next Time: Thoughts on the Proud Warrior Race Guy