Orlocks 3rd Champion advice

[dawuduk]

https://yaktribe.games/underhive/gang/sandsea_scimitars.18832/

Campaign at a local gaming club in my city, doing well so far, other than my leader losing an eye.
Lost 1st game, won 2nd and 3rd. All narrow wins or loses. Feeling very pleased with myself though, as first foray back into gaming for about 19 years.
No skill ups yet, but if I am not top, I am close to it coming close to end of 1st cycle.

My gang has 7 rep, 2 champions already, and 3 turf from the 1st cycle. Going into the 2nd cycle soon and if I win my first game good chance I will be able to get my 3rd champion and am thinking on how to tool him up.

Credits are not likely to be too much of an issue with the turf size.

So thoughts are...

option 1. straight forward Heavy Stubber for reliability... because what's better than a heavy stubber, well two heavy stubbers! plus I already have the model built for this.

option 2. heavy bolter, for even more fire power, bit more cost but worth it for the extra accuracy and damage.

option 3. if can get one in trade... missile launcher... as not seen one yet even on youtube, it's only 5 credits more than the heavy bolter but I'm thinking of 5'' 4S -1AP blasts at 48''... sweet. We've got two Goliath gangs, both with grenade launchers, would really cramp their style to be able to out shoot them in this manner.

And I like throwing a spanner in the works and coming up with new ways of doing things, so the fact I've not seen this done really appeals to me... though maybe it's not been done because it's simply a bad idea?

Not wanting to go down a plasma gun or melta gun route, as don't have anything with scarce yet, and want to avoid being hit by click every game. Do have a nice model built with a flamer, but he's going to be a ganger later on as otherwise it's a waste of BS for a champion to be tooled up this way.

We also have two Van Saar gangs in the running, so want something to be able to outshoot them at distance and force them to either bottle or come to me and fight on my terms with the combat shotguns.

If get good income, and can avoid hefty doc fees, would also be probably going to try to get firestorm ammo for my combat shotgun guys and armoured undersuits for champs from trading over next cycle.

Thoughts people?

 

[Cpt. Boriel]

I am also a fan of the missile launcher and heavy stubber. But then you’ll need two sets of suspensors. And that’ll take time.

Just remember, as your GR goes up (and it will go up faster with the 3rd champ), others will be choosing scenarios against you. If you get too far ahead, you’ll get raided and ambushed quite a lot.

That aside, I personally went for a harpoon launcher, which was good against armor, but felt underwhelming with only Damage 1

 

[dawuduk]

I am also a fan of the missile launcher and heavy stubber. But then you’ll need two sets of suspensors. And that’ll take time.

Just remember, as your GR goes up (and it will go up faster with the 3rd champ), others will be choosing scenarios against you. If you get too far ahead, you’ll get raided and ambushed quite a lot.

That aside, I personally went for a harpoon launcher, which was good against armor, but felt underwhelming with only Damage 1

I left the harpoon launcher out... it's fun, but it's not a game winner and I am very competitive

thanks for the feedback, already got a heavy bolter which almost fits into the orlock heavy weapon pose, and looking at a missile launcher option as well as need to get the extra box now anyway so may as well go all out

 

[Obarkon]

Heavy Stubber - imo one of the best weapons for the orlock. High damage output combined with good ammo roll. the only thing you need to make it even better - Suspensor from a marketplace.

 

[Major Sharpe]

Heavy Stubber - imo one of the best weapons for the orlock. High damage output combined with good ammo roll. the only thing you need to make it even better - Suspensor from a marketplace.

I would argue that the heavy bolter is objectively superior to the heavy stubber given the pretty modest price difference between the two.

Frankly, they both need suspensors so it's a question of whether you want the stubber at 190 or the HB at 220. Let's crunch some numbers.

-The only real advantage the stubber has over the HB is its ammo roll. What are the chances of rolling and failing an ammo check? Let's do some math:

% to Run out of Ammo Rolling 1 Firepower Die
Heavy Stubber: (1/6)(1/2) = 8.3%
Heavy Bolter: (1/6)(5/6) = 13.9%

% to Run out of Ammo Rolling 2 Firepower Dice
Heavy stubber: (1-sqrt(5/6))(1/2) = 15.3%
Heavy Bolter: (1-sqrt(5/6)(5/6) = 25.5%

So assuming you like to haul down on that trigger there's about a 1 in 4 chance that your Heavy Bolter runs out of ammo each time you fire it, and if not, a decent chance your opponent Clicks it anyway. So how hard is it to reload this thing if you wanted to spend both your actions doing it? Let's run those numbers.

% to reload spending both actions: 1-sqrt(5/6) = 30.6%

But you're Orlock, so what if you have munitioneer?

% to reload spending both actions with munitioneer: 1-(5/6)^4 = 51.8%

So we can see that with munitioneer the 6+ ammo roll suddenly becomes a much more tolerable risk. But why bother taking the risk of shutting down your heavy at all? How much deadlier is the Heavy Bolter than the Heavy Stubber? I'm glad you asked:

Let's consider 4 possible cases. A T3 model at 12", a T4 model at 12", a T3 model at 24", and a T4 model at 24" (all of whom have a 5+ save and 1 wound). What kind of damage can we expect each weapon to inflict?

This is where the math gets a little hand-wavey, as I have to make some assumptions about how many hits I'm going to roll on the firepower dice. To do this I'm going to make a 2D6 table that has 36 possible results ranging from 2 hits to 6 hits. This breaks down as follows:

2 hits - 25% chance
3 hits - 33.3% chance
4 hits - 27.7% chance
5 hits - 11.1% chance
6 hits - 2.77% chance

The most likely result on this table is 3 hits with the average value (120/36) being 3.33. Since I have a 75% or better chance of getting at least 3 hits, we'll move forward with the conservative estimate that I'm rolling at least a 3.

So while I'm not sure how to reduce the effectiveness of these weapons to a single number, the Heavy Bolter is more than twice as effective against all targets at all ranges than the heavy stubber. And this is assuming the very conservative chance that the firepower dice only roll a 3. With each additional hit the gap in wounds between the Heavy Bolter and Heavy Stubber widens in the bolter's favor.

Just saying.

 

[dawuduk]

interesting stats, backs up my choices in model making and painting going off right now between painting stages on the heavy bolter model

on suspensors...

Do people not use heavies without them?

 

[enyoss]

I would argue that the heavy bolter is objectively superior to the heavy stubber given the pretty modest price difference between the two.

Frankly, they both need suspensors so it's a question of whether you want the stubber at 190 or the HB at 220. Let's crunch some numbers.

-The only real advantage the stubber has over the HB is its ammo roll. What are the chances of rolling and failing an ammo check? Let's do some math:

% to Run out of Ammo Rolling 1 Firepower Die
Heavy Stubber: (1/6)(1/2) = 8.3%
Heavy Bolter: (1/6)(5/6) = 13.9%

% to Run out of Ammo Rolling 2 Firepower Dice
Heavy stubber: (1-sqrt(5/6))(1/2) = 15.3%
Heavy Bolter: (1-sqrt(5/6)(5/6) = 25.5%

So assuming you like to haul down on that trigger there's about a 1 in 4 chance that your Heavy Bolter runs out of ammo each time you fire it, and if not, a decent chance your opponent Clicks it anyway. So how hard is it to reload this thing if you wanted to spend both your actions doing it? Let's run those numbers.

% to reload spending both actions: 1-sqrt(5/6) = 30.6%

But you're Orlock, so what if you have munitioneer?

% to reload spending both actions with munitioneer: 1-(5/6)^4 = 51.8%

So we can see that with munitioneer the 6+ ammo roll suddenly becomes a much more tolerable risk. But why bother taking the risk of shutting down your heavy at all? How much deadlier is the Heavy Bolter than the Heavy Stubber? I'm glad you asked:

Let's consider 4 possible cases. A T3 model at 12", a T4 model at 12", a T3 model at 24", and a T4 model at 24" (all of whom have a 5+ save and 1 wound). What kind of damage can we expect each weapon to inflict?

This is where the math gets a little hand-wavey, as I have to make some assumptions about how many hits I'm going to roll on the firepower dice. To do this I'm going to make a 2D6 table that has 36 possible results ranging from 2 hits to 6 hits. This breaks down as follows:

2 hits - 25% chance
3 hits - 33.3% chance
4 hits - 27.7% chance
5 hits - 11.1% chance
6 hits - 2.77% chance

The most likely result on this table is 3 hits with the average value (120/36) being 3.33. Since I have a 75% or better chance of getting at least 3 hits, we'll move forward with the conservative estimate that I'm rolling at least a 3.

View attachment 62334

So while I'm not sure how to reduce the effectiveness of these weapons to a single number, the Heavy Bolter is more than twice as effective against all targets at all ranges than the heavy stubber. And this is assuming the very conservative chance that the firepower dice only roll a 3. With each additional hit the gap in wounds between the Heavy Bolter and Heavy Stubber widens in the bolter's favor.

Just saying.

Good to see numbers crunched!

To reduce it down to one number you can multiply the expected outcome from a given number of shots by the probability you get that number of shots, and sum it up.

The resulting number will be the overall expected amount of damage per shooting action.

Although I always argue that it’s more useful to calculate the probability of doing at least X wounds per shooting action, as that makes much better use of all available info .

Edit: the reason I prefer these full “probability of causing at least X wounds” distributions is that you can look up the number of wounds your target has and immediately pull out a percentage chance that you’ll finish them off with this shot, taking into account all the to-hit, strength, damage and AP modifiers.

 

[SumpRat]

So the big three for a Heavy Bolter seem to be Nerves of a Steel, Suspensors and Munitioneer?

Obviously at this stage it’s an autotake over a heavy stubber, but the most effective build for it is some combination of those three?

 

[Major Sharpe]

I would also add a close combat weapon given how many scenarios have you deploying within charge range of your opponent or where both teams bring reinforcements onto the same board edge. For max synergy I'd suggest a Spud-Jacker if you're Goliath or a chainsword for anyone else. Knockback is great if you can get it because you can knock an opponent back and then shoot them with your 2nd action. Parry is just good because it reduces your opponent's chance of killing you before you can hit back.

You probably also want to look into a bio-booster for your HB champ because he'll be expensive and worth keeping alive.

 

[enyoss]

I would also add a close combat weapon given how many scenarios have you deploying within charge range of your opponent or where both teams bring reinforcements onto the same board edge. For max synergy I'd suggest a Spud-Jacker if you're Goliath or a chainsword for anyone else. Knockback is great if you can get it because you can knock an opponent back and then shoot them with your 2nd action. Parry is just good because it reduces your opponent's chance of killing you before you can hit back.

You probably also want to look into a bio-booster for your HB champ because he'll be expensive and worth keeping alive.

Never occurred to me that you could knockback in CC and then point blank to the face with your second action. Good call!

Makes sawnoff shotguns a nice take - kick em to the floor then D6 S3 scatter to the face

 

[SumpRat]

Well now I gotta try and give my Orlocks something with knockback because i’ve a lot of sawn offs...

 

[cronevald]

Never occurred to me that you could knockback in CC and then point blank to the face with your second action. Good call!

Makes sawnoff shotguns a nice take - kick em to the floor then D6 S3 scatter to the face

I've found that it should make you think twice about charging a Van Saar with an energy shield and a combi-melta. It's a lesson you only have to learn once.

 

[enyoss]

I've found that it should make you think twice about charging a Van Saar with an energy shield and a combi-melta. It's a lesson you only have to learn once.

And there I was fantasising about sawn-offs .

“One mustn’t be afraid to dream bigger my friend”

 

[Vegeta365]

interesting stats, backs up my choices in model making and painting going off right now between painting stages on the heavy bolter model

on suspensors...

Do people not use heavies without them?

Yes, at the start of a campaign I will use a heavy without suspensors. But as soon as I can buy them I do. They are priority 1 as the very first buy. Having one Orlock with the relevant skill makes this easier to do after the first game aswell.

The heavy bolter is absolute no brainier over the heavy stubber with the pats cost difference. With munitioner over 6 turns you should get 4-5 turns of shooting abd the firepower is far more lethal.

 

[oddball300]

If you can for halairity if you can take a missile launcher

 

[dawuduk]

If you can for halairity if you can take a missile launcher

I am building the missile launcher as an upgrade for my existing heavy stubber champion.

So the plan for next cycle or two is recruit champion, save up get heavy bolter.

Then later cycles save up get missile launcher for existing heavy stubber champ.
If I get another champion after that it will be heavy bolter again or las cannon

 

[oddball300]

Right on man. Like I said. I like the heavy bolter and the missile launcher is just funny too. Another weapon to consider guess would be a grenade launcher cause those are pretty solid and scare grenades are awesome. Again they may have changed they rules if you can lob those or not

 

[dawuduk]

Right on man. Like I said. I like the heavy bolter and the missile launcher is just funny too. Another weapon to consider guess would be a grenade launcher cause those are pretty solid and scare grenades are awesome. Again they may have changed they rules if you can lob those or not

grenade launcher can get given to a ganger if needed, and have about a dozen of them from a box of bits I bought cheap off ebay so not worried about that. Also want a flamer eventually as well... I have such a big shopping list but limited funds and just got 10 other players trying to stop me from getting them to beat them in the future

 

[oddball300]

Fair enough. But but in fairness rule of cool should always take precedence in this silly game in my opinion. I also like diversity. Well there's my two cenrts. At any rate man just remember they are your little dudes you arm them how you want if they end up being super killy great. If they end up eating a face full of whatever least you will have a funny story to share later.