[Epic] Re: Whoops

From: <csalvato_at_...>
Date: Sun, 17 Aug 97 13:21:57

>Well, I just have one question: Why do they have one firepower, and zero
>assault? I would think it should be the other way around... Is that a typo?

The point of the human bombs' assault of zero represents the fact that as soon
as they are within range of the enemy, the guy holding the big red button blows
'em all up. Thus, they should never *really* win an assault, but have a
substantial chance of taking enemies with them due to the Rampage ability. If,
by some cosmic coincidence, the human bombs happen to survive a combat, just say
that as a fluke, their explosive collars failed to go off.

As for the FP=1, they are (AFAIR) armed with rudimentary close assault weapons
-- Laspistols being the one I was centering on. Since any unit with the Assault
skill has its range reduced to 15cm, I figured they should have 1 fp at range
15cm. Perhaps I could see a reduction of 0 FP, but I really didn;t think it
mattered.


For example, lets look at 10 penal legion stands attacking 5 space marine
tactical stands:

Assume zero blast markers all around, and no psykers (for simplicity's sake)

Human Bombs: Assault = 0
Marines: Assault = 15

Marines have automatic +4, Human Bombs have +/-0

Chance that Marines will win: 35/36
Chance that the human bombs will win: 1/36

Presuming that the human bombs double up on the marines, each marine will take a
total of 4 dice to kill depending upon the outcome of the close assault.
Usually, this will work out to be that the marines need a 2+ and the Bombs need
a 6+. Thus, 4/6 marines will be destroyed on average, while the bombs are wiped
out to a man.

If this seems extreme, remember that 2 human bombs stands = 12 pts, only 3 less
than a tac squad.

If the bombs had an assault of one, the marines would not gain the +4 bonus,
only a +1, and the chances of the human bombs winning and surviving the combat
would skyrocket, totally flying into the face of the *fluff* around which the
unit was created.

As for the guy holding the big red button, I thought about creating a new unit
to do that but it just seemed easier to assume that the HQ unit(s) had the big
red button, or something like that. It's just easier this way.

So there's my justification. Maybe take the FP down to zero, but otherwise, I
like this unit.

Chris
Received on Sun Aug 17 1997 - 12:21:57 UTC