Dark Lance or a Disintegrator Cannon - how to equip your Ravager(s)

A lot of us (or at least me) feel kinda uncertain whether a Dissy is a good choice - it has 3 shots but only 5 strength and flat 2 damage. Thanks to codex it went down in points by 50%, being now 5pts cheaper than a DL. With point reduction to 3xDC Ravager went down to 125pts.

Instinctively I would say - take a Lance when firing at a Vehicle, elsewhere take a Dissy. I did some math and... I was wrong.

Let's jump into the maths. I will divide this post into 4 parts:

• average unsaved wounding hits
• average damage dealt
• average damage dealt per points spend
• few honorable mentions

Average unsaved wounding hits

Similarly, to all the following I did my calculations for targets with T1-10 and Save 1+-7+ (from a 2+ save in cover to no save).

This are the final results of my calculations - a Cannon deals more wounding hits despite having lower Strenght and Worse Ap.

What does it mean to us (before we implement damage into the calculation)? That unless we are shooting at a 3+W target DC is gonna be more reliable. Things might change if we were to shoot at a Death guard marine (5+++ etc.).

Average damage dealt

DC does flat 2 where a DL does 3,5 on average. This should change the results, right? And it does :D

Here DL takes the lead when targeting most of the Vehicles that we can find in our games (and most of the Monsters too). Remember me mentioning that Nurgle marines? You are still gonna disintegrate them with a cannon.

So, DL is a better AT weapon? Yes, but it is more expensive. Let's check how the things shape up if we factor in the cost.

Average damage dealt per points spend

This time I decided to post all the results. The damage dealt has been divided per 100pts spend on a 3xDC or 3xDL Ravager.

Now, if we compare those 2, we get some interesting results.

As you can plainly see DC overtook the Lance at T8 at 2+ and 3+ save. If a Land raider or a Leman Russ doesn't hang out in the open (or you happen to be from the Flayed Skulls) you should rather equip Ravagers with a DC.

The choice is not clear. For me it will be DC on Vehicles and Blasters on the Scourge and Kabalites.

There are 2 honorable mentions that were counterintuitive for me:

Honorable mentions

... a Wave Serpent (with its Shields and Stones) and a Necron Ghost Ark (with its Quantum Shielding)

Let's start with the Ghost Ark. Whenever it is getting damaged, the opponent rolls a d6. If he rolls lower, he gets to negate ALL the damage. I thought it favors the DC (as it does less dmg per wound)

A 3DL Ravager gets on average 2 hits > 1,33 wounds > 2,07 dmg. That is 1,48 per 100pts.

A 3DC Ravager gets on average 6 hits > 2 wounds > 3,28 dmg. That is 2,62 per 100pts.

EDIT: A user form the Dark City named Rashkashanoticed a mistake in my calculations. It has been corrected above. It seems that DC is actually way better at dealing with the Necrons

Now the Transport of the lesser kin - the Wave Serpent. With its wargear it ignores wounds on a "6" and reduces incoming dmg by 1 to minimum of 1.

A 3DL Ravager gets on average 2 hits > 1,33 wounds > 1,33 unsaved wounds > 2,96 dmg. That is 2,12 per 100pts.

A 3DC Ravager gets on average 6 hits > 2 wounds > 1,67 unsaved wounds > 1,39 dmg > . That is 1,11 per 100pts.

Depsite the damage reduction and 6+++ a Lance beats Dissy by a big margin.

I hope it was useful, interesting and that it will help you make your own choice based on the stats I provided. Good luck in bringing pain!

Anti-tank Scourges, blasters and the haywireblasters

8th edition codex has landed and I do not need to tell you - it is huge. Lots of new options, many weapons revised. I decided to start with a quick look at my favorite Drukhari unit - Scourges.

I like to use them both as Tank hunters and as Character snipers but for the purpose of this post I am gonna focus at the 2 anti-vehicle options that look really appealing to me - new d6d Blasters and new Haywire Blasters. The buffs to Heat lance look fine but then again... you enter >9" from an enemy with your 6S shot and that ridiculous AP5 (which negates 2+ armor but you wound on 5s - not the best deal at all).

I did my calculations for 3 types of Vehicles. A Rhino Equivalent (T7, Sv3+), a Land Raider equivalent (T8, Sv2+) and an unfriendly Raider (T5, Sv4+/5++). 

We have to remember, that a Blaster scourge costs almost 50% more than HWB scourge. I adjusted the %chance to the cost and here you have it:

Blaster and Haywire blaster

vs a Rhino

vs a Landraider

vs a Raider

the X-axis shows damage dealt (Well, theoretically 1 hwb can do even 12 dmg, but probability of it doing  7+ is ~0,5% against a Raider)

the Y-axis shows probability of doing that much dmg

By looking at those graphs we can easily tell that the haywire blaster is better at shooting vehicles. It is the best weapon if we want to strip a Tank from last few wounds. A hwb doesn't care about invs, quantum-shielding and spirit stones but it is next to useless at sniping characters and killing non-vehicle opponents.

Tho a Scourge with a Haywire blaster has >50% chance of getting at least 1 wound on a Landraider (a blaster equipped one <28%) it cannot benefit form CP reroll that well - we all know and we all love that sweet sweet dmg roll of "6" on a blaster shot from a cheap winged Drukhari.

Conclusion

When playing against a Vehicle heavy opponent Haywire is a useful tool at getting that killing blow on a Tank but it cannot and should not serve as a primary AT option for our army.