Bell of Lost Souls - Latest Comments in 40k DEEP THOUGHT: AP vs Rate of Fire?

Re: 40k DEEP THOUGHT: AP vs Rate of Fire?

Q_Paul — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 23:40:14 -0000

Unless, of course, that battlecannon has plasma cannon sponsons and a lascannon. That's three wounds, assuming one miss (the lascannon).

Re: 40k DEEP THOUGHT: AP vs Rate of Fire?

mordiano — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 05:47:09 -0000

Ok, so this is what I get from this:

You can devide targets into (at least)

I.Heavy infantry AV2+/AV3+
II. Light infantry Bad AV
III. Vehicles

And weapons into (at least)

A. AP
B. Rate of fire

Both weapon types are (incredibly enough) relativley good against II. (Heavy infantry), A Because they ignore their armour saves and B. Because they inflict many wounds to save.

The problem is which other target options you have:

A. can also target II (light inf) wheras B can also target III (vehicles)

PS. Bonus wisdom, stay away from heavy infantry as this will limit your oponents target choices as AP cannot switch to light inf and RoF cannot switch to vehicles.

Re: 40k DEEP THOUGHT: AP vs Rate of Fire?

skelator — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 02:35:20 -0000

as a tau player i take a mix of units,

most of our low ap weapons are good/adequate tank busters so even if im fighting a horde of orks or gaurd i can dish the pain on their tanks while pinning em in place with carbins and Rrifles

i dont see much use in seeker missiles as their a one shot weapon that never seems to do much against heavier vhecles like the ones you tend to see (leman russes and predators we're lookin at you)
so that tends to make skyrays obselete cos once youve used their six shots doin not much your left with a points sink

Re: 40k DEEP THOUGHT: AP vs Rate of Fire?

mypantsareonfire — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 21:02:16 -0000

I really think it depends on who your fighting. For example you don't spam low ap weapons on say an ork or tyranid army. But I find that you should pick one end of the spectrum and stick with it, for example, terminator/any really well armoured units can be either blasted to bits in few shots by really big guns, or pumeled with a volley of slugs.

-Advantage of low ap high dmg= they can be employed against armour or infantry, you can never not have a target for one of these.
-Advantage of high rate of fire= they tear up elite and hoards, elites will fail fancy armour tests eventualy, and hoards probably wont even get one. Also people who like invulnerable saves will find they wasted points against high rate of fire.

-Disadvantage of of low ap high dmg= lots of points.
-Disadvantage of high rate of fire= medium troopes have the numbers to shrug of some casualty and their armour saves can keep them going. Bad against medium and heavy tanks.

Re: 40k DEEP THOUGHT: AP vs Rate of Fire?

Zealot — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 11:38:19 -0000

Calling these deep thoughts is actually funny.

Re: 40k DEEP THOUGHT: AP vs Rate of Fire?

verirh — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 09:12:57 -0000

Any non-marine player willlook for any cover save they can get. Why have a 5 or 6 plus save when you can get a 3 or 4 plus save?
Hence the need for LOTS of shots no matter the AP. This way the opponent has to make more saves.
Mathhammer rules!

Re: 40k DEEP THOUGHT: AP vs Rate of Fire?

BiG_Weasel — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 06:45:32 -0000

As a Tyranid player, my AP generally sucks anyway. Best AP I can pull off my weapons is 5, and that ain't worth spit against the most popular armies. What I've been doing lately is running 3 warrior broods with devourers (20 shots), carnifexes with 2x TL devourers and spine banks (8 shots, with rerolls to both hit and wound; additional shootiness with the banks), and it's been working out really well thus far. AP is good if you don't have a lot of shooting, and can't dump out massed firepower and tip the law of averages in your favor.

Re: 40k DEEP THOUGHT: AP vs Rate of Fire?

Valourousheart — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 19:25:03 -0000

I prefer Rate of Fire over AP for the same reasons listed in the OP.
But I have found a nice combo with my Ravenwing that gets me the best of both worlds.

I use a MM/AC combo on my landspeeders, usually taking 3.
This gives me a decent RoF in comparison to a HB/AC or MM/HF vs infantry.
It also gives me a better tank hunter than either of the above speeders.

One or two of those speeders also have a good chance at wiping out or crippling a 5 man TDA squad without having to get with in PF range.

This combo is also great against Land Raiders.
I have lost track of how many times have rolled up and whiffed with my Mulit-Misses, only to explode the LR with a rending hit from the AC.

Re: 40k DEEP THOUGHT: AP vs Rate of Fire?

BlackSly — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 13:30:15 -0000

I think that overall, RoF > low AP.

But you do want a bit of low AP firing ability, to remove Termies and other nasty units that feel tough enough to approach your front lines without caring for cover.

Basically, I generally feel that a mixed fire approach works best, having multiple different types of weapons, hopefully with solid range, allows you to pick the best one for each target. Overall, you want more RoF weapons because there will be many times when your opponent is mostly or totally in cover, but you don't want to be caught with no low AP weapons and have someone drop Deep Strike 2 squads of 2+ save units in your lap.

Balance is better than all low AP or all RoF, but in this case I think balance means about 2:1 or 3:1 ratio of RoF to low AP firepower. After all, there will always be targets, even Terminators, on which wounds will eventually hurt, but you don't always have targets out of cover with good armor saves, to make the low AP weapons bring their full value. So bring some low AP weapons, but bring more RoF weapons, to most fights.

Re: 40k DEEP THOUGHT: AP vs Rate of Fire?

James__P — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 12:44:52 -0000

Hear, hear

(Another) James

Re: 40k DEEP THOUGHT: AP vs Rate of Fire?

Farsight — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 12:29:18 -0000

With a railgun, you get a good tank-buster and an good infantry-slayer at the same time. Besides, the submunition shot doesn't count as ordinance, so you can still fire burst cannons as well. With a Hammerhead, you get way more hits than with an ion cannon, and with ap4 it is excellent at taking out gaurdsmen.

Crisis plasma rifles are for those pesky MEQs.

Re: 40k DEEP THOUGHT: AP vs Rate of Fire?

SM — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 12:20:23 -0000

Good point, even though a melta will wound and ap a Carnifex, we're talking about 1 measly wound out of 4, and then the melta squad gets pwnd in close combat (depending on the build of the carnifex).

That's why I prefer plasma against MC/TMCs, because you still have all of that strength and low ap, but with the added bonus of larger RoF.

Re: 40k DEEP THOUGHT: AP vs Rate of Fire?

SM — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 12:13:58 -0000

Whenever my brother would play my spacemarines, he could never kill my 5 terminators even though he would focus his whole army's shooting on that one unit. Then he started packing low ap weapons, and the terminators were dropping like flies.

Re: 40k DEEP THOUGHT: AP vs Rate of Fire?

anon — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 10:34:49 -0000

most of what you are saying is correct but you have missed the point slightly. I agree that the standard deviation only increases as the square-root of the number of dice, but by the definition of VARIANCE the variance increases therefore as the square of the square-root of the number of dice, i.e. it increases linearly with the number of dice. As a consequence, while rolling more dice certainly increases reliability that you will hit SOMETHING, it does not at all increase reliability of an individual weapon in question.

Re: 40k DEEP THOUGHT: AP vs Rate of Fire?

DooDoo Head Brown — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 09:31:46 -0000

I'm playing the new IG. I had five infantry squads each with a missile launcher and grenade launcher. Two heavy support squads of three heavy bolters, one mortor squad. I do fun a squad of veterans with three melta-guns. I rely on using the two battle tanks and one basilisk pie plate to target units in the open that will not be able to get a cover save from those weapons. Simply put, CSM and Space Marines. WIth my infantry, it's all about causing as many wounds as possilbe to threat units. I try to think of what my opponent is trying to do and which squad he is relying on most if I have multiple targets and just shoot the crap out of it until they fail enough wounds. I've found low AP weapons in 5th are not really great since cover is everywhere. I take 4+ cover saves all the time, actually close combat is about the only time my troopers die without some cover saves, so I'd rather spray and pray than go for the one shot one kill.

Re: 40k DEEP THOUGHT: AP vs Rate of Fire?

RealGenius — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 09:20:23 -0000

I think you still need a moderate amount of low AP weaponry because sometimes you need to kill a unit in a turn and not over two turns. You might have twenty Firewarriors blazing away at some Nobz (or anything else with FNP really) sitting on an objective, but they just might not die from that first round of rapid fire shooting. Where if you had some AP2 in there you'd immediately remove one of their saves (FNP).

I think probably a third of your army's units need at least 2 low AP shots: for example: two squads of Dire Avengers, one squad of Dark Reapers.

Re: 40k DEEP THOUGHT: AP vs Rate of Fire?

lord kroll — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 03:45:45 -0000

played a game yesterday against a Nidzilla list with my Plague marines.

He had 2 tyrants (1 winged) with 2 twin linked devourers & 2 elite carnifexs the same.
Thats 12 shots each for the Tyrants at 18" S6 rerolling to hit on 3s & rerolling wounds & 8 shots each for the Fexs.

Needless to say I didn't have a chance, couldn't make the saves & my vehicles were toast as well.

Re: 40k DEEP THOUGHT: AP vs Rate of Fire?

Militant.Jester — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 02:40:09 -0000

Generally I go for:

Strength
AP
then RoF

I play Tau so I can always make cover saves go away..I can't improve my AP or strength.

Re: 40k DEEP THOUGHT: AP vs Rate of Fire?

Anarchyfever — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 02:37:36 -0000

I have to totally agree with you on this, as a Tau player I see a lot of XV8 and suit lists, and these armies are just not performing like 4th edition. For me the humble firewarrior, SMS and markerlight is all I need. I only have 2 suits in my list, one for horde and one for elites.(1000pts)

It really pains me to see people only using 6 firewarrior squads, becuase their never going to learn how effective 12 man squads can be. Of course this again bites into the "my way of playing" arguement.

Re: 40k DEEP THOUGHT: AP vs Rate of Fire?

DMK — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 00:48:58 -0000

haha the OMGS YOU AREN'T USING LASH IN CHEESY COMBOS people are awesome, how dare he not use a cookie cutter power combo.

Re: 40k DEEP THOUGHT: AP vs Rate of Fire?

Kevin Brooke — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 22:11:55 -0000

I personnally like a mix of things. I use alot of RoF guns. Usually run 2 squads of 8 Noise Marines, give all but one Sonic Blasters (including champ) and one a Blast Master. Thats a grand total of 46 shots out of 2 units. But for the AP side, I usually run a squad of Plague Marines, 2 Meltas usually take any vehical in my way.

Re: 40k DEEP THOUGHT: AP vs Rate of Fire?

Yaleling — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 21:25:16 -0000

Of course the other joy of massed poor AP fire is that it largely devalues cover. Generally I couldn't care less if my target holes up in cover or uses a screening unit. Since (s)he was always going to get an armour save anyhow, who cares about cover? ;p

Re: 40k DEEP THOUGHT: AP vs Rate of Fire?

Yaleling — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 21:11:52 -0000

Oh too true! Sometimes my stranglers do nothing. But sometimes they go gangbusters. In one lucky shot I hit and wounded 10 grey knights and killed 5 of them. What I find so dangerous about massed poor AP fire is not the average damage - but the potential damage. Players fear that.

I run a big brood of warriors with deathspitters and a barbed strangler. While they are fragile (being warriors) my gaming buddies fear them: not for the average damage they do but the remember the horror shooting phases. In one phase that brood shot at some guardsmen and the only damage was one wound on my hive tyrant (bad scatter and failed my 2+ save...), but everyone remembers the game where they shot 20 fabius bile enhanced super marines and clocked up 37 wounds. There was not much of the squad left after that.

With tyranids being a very 'psychological' army I like the fear of my potential damage over the real average effectiveness. ;)

Re: 40k DEEP THOUGHT: AP vs Rate of Fire?

Drop Trooper — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 19:45:36 -0000

Well my IG army (all infantry) is crammed with the 'sexy' plasmas and meltas i got some heavy bolters and some MISSile launchers in there, but my Tau army is all Missile pods and burst cannons.

Re: 40k DEEP THOUGHT: AP vs Rate of Fire?

ligolski — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 19:32:13 -0000

yea thats why i put them on tanks and most are twin linked lol