A SECOND LOOK AT POWER ARMOUR

So Chapter Approved has drastically moved points around to try and bring units into balance, so lets go back and take a look at one of my previous posts and see if these points changes can bring balance to the force.

POWER ARMOUR BALANCING ACT is the name of the game and in that post I went through the lethality, durability, and table control of several power armour units comparing them to units that have similar roles from different armies.  With Chapter Approved greatly dropping the points of several power armour units, and with some new rules increasing their offensive capabilities, I am going to go back to those units and see just how much the rules have improved them.  I will not be incorporating every possible buff to the units, only the ones that come standard on their data sheet and the ones that are available to them as an army wide buff such as Hateful Assault.  This assessment is to take a look at the unit at it's most basic version.

For 153 points you can now get 9 Possessed who have come down to 17 points per model, compared to 7 Possessed for 154 points and 22 points each.  Adding an extra attack on the turn they charge means they now kill 12 guard, 8 marines, and take 4 wounds off a rhino, which is double to their previous damage output.

Their durability didn't really increase, but because there are more models it now takes 162 bolter rounds, 31 reaper launcher rounds, and 25 super charged plasma rounds.  Now because things have changed in other areas of the meta, I feel like I should include an additional weapon since primaris marines are becoming so popular so 108 bolt rifle rounds will take out all 9.

The table control has changed a little with the increase in model count but it still does not compare to the Genestealers whose movement and ability to advance and charge greatly outpaces the Possessed however I think I would put the Possessed in front of the Nobs now that they outnumber them combined with their higher durability and movement.

Our second object of discussion was the Raptor which actually got a points reduction just after I wrote the previous article but did not receive a further points drop in the recent CA.  For 154 points you can get 8 Raptors.  Two of them have plasma guns and one is a champ with a chain axe and combi plasma.  I had to change up the champ's weapons a little because I did get a couple extra points to play with.  With the plasma firing overcharged and then the unit charging afterward this will give us 10 dead Guardsmen, 6 dead Marines, and 6 damage off of a Rhino which bring them into second spot on the lethality challenge.  I didn't take into account any of the plasma guys dying because I'm working with base results with no modifiers.  This is not a huge increase as the drop in points only allows for one extra body, however with the weapons changes and Hateful Assault I had thought that the numbers would have increased more than they did.

Furthermore the single extra body does not increase their durability that much only adding a few more rounds for each weapon.  The Raptors were not that far behind the Scourges though so they end up edging them out.  This pretty much sums up the table control aspect as well, as a single model is not enough to change this aspect.

Finally we come to the basic Chaos Space Marine.  In the original post  I upped the points level to 176 so I could take a 10 man squad to give them 2 special weapons.  Since the last post we have had some drastic changes to the Chaos Space Marine which have decreased their points to 11 points per model and have seen them get a new weapon, the reaper chaincannon.  So I have decided to make some changes and give them 2 of these new guns and increase the total squad size to 12 in order to hit 177 points.  I also replaced the plasma pistol with a bolter on the champ but left the power axe.  With these changes the lethality of this unit has increased to 20 dead guardsmen, 9 dead marines, and 5 wounds off a rhino.  As you can see their effectiveness has greatly increased against infantry while the damage output against larger targets has waned a little.  If your looking for more vehicle killing then you can go double plasma gun with a combi-plasma gun and power fist on the champ in a 12 model unit and score 16 dead Guard, 8 marines, and 9 wounds on a rhino for 174 points.

The extra couple bodies increases their durability but not by a meaningful amount.  They still fall behind the Guardsmen in all categories and behind the orks in all but small arms fire.  Plus they are still greatly outnumbered and not nearly as fast or versatile so they still come in last in table control.  I was really looking forward to this change being enough to run a bunch of Marine bodies but after this post I'm not 100% sold on them.

Well, we can clearly see that the damage output of the power armour units has greatly increased and the durability of the unit has only increased in that there are marginally more models in the unit.  However we are not out of the game just yet as Faith and Fury has added several abilities that can increase the durability of several of these units.  I have started a post that looks at maximizing the potential of these units and others so keep an eye out for that.

Until next time, keep them dice rollin.

This post is sponsored by Idle Hands Commission Painting and Upholstery.  Yeah, that last bit always gets me too.

Donny has been painting like a mad man grinding through a ton of Astra Militarum and Car Wars models.  If you need something painted give him a shout on Facebook.

Or if you need your couch fixed he could do that too.  Shipping might be a bit harsh on that one though.