This fun bit of math is brought to us by community member Slowbad, give it a look! -ed
I had some fun this weekend creating a bunch of functions in Python to simulate multiple attempts at our stuff shooting at flyers. This all assumes that the flyer will evade. The percentage is the chance for that unit to destroy a flyer by either stripping all hull points off or rolling an explodes result. I know in some cases like against a Night Scythe a weapon destroyed result is just as good I wanted to have this information against all flyers. Each percentage was calculated from 10,000 trials.
10 Warp Spiders, not Guided
vs AV 10 – 46.36%
vs AV 11 – 33.53%
vs AV 12 – 18.89%
10 Warp Spiders, Guided
vs AV 10 – 74.36%
vs AV 11 – 58.32%
vs AV 12 – 34.36%
Wave Serpent with TL-Scatter Lasers and Serpent Shield
vs AV 10 – 22.35%
vs AV 11 – 12.79%
vs AV 12 – 5.06%
vs Heldrake – 3.11%
3 War Walkers with two Scatter Lasers each, not Guided
vs AV 10 – 23.44%
vs AV 11 – 11.89%
vs AV 12 – 0.91%
3 War Walkers with two Bright Lances each, not Guided
vs AV 10 – 21.16%
vs AV 11 – 15.28%
vs AV 12 – 10.75%
3 War Walkers with two Scatter Lasers each, Guided
vs AV 10 – 53.85%
vs AV 11 – 28.73%
vs AV 12 – 4.54%
3 War Walkers with two Bright Lances each, Guided
vs AV 10 – 36.44%
vs AV 11 – 27.49%
vs AV 12 – 18.66%
War Walkers with Flak EML, no Guide
vs AV 10 – 36.25%
vs AV 11 – 22.76%
vs AV 12 – 10.7174%
War Walkers with Flak EML, with Guide
vs AV 10 – 54.29%
vs AV 11 – 35.20%
vs AV 12 – 35.14%
War Walkers with Scatter Laser and Flak EML, no Guide
vs AV 10 – 21.81%
vs AV 11 – 12.94%
vs AV 12 – 5.38%
War Walkers with Scatter Laser and Bright Lance, no Guide
vs AV 10 – 7.55%
vs AV 11 – 4.33%
vs AV 12 – 1.46%
War Walkers with Scatter Laser and Flak EML, with Guide
vs AV 10 – 29.995%
vs AV 11 – 17.284%
vs AV 12 – 6.64%
War Walkers with Scatter Laser and Bright Lance, with Guide
vs AV 10 – 11.851%
vs AV 11 – 6.81%
vs AV 12 – 2.02%
Crimson Hunter with no Exarch, not Guided
vs AV 10 – 60.97%
vs AV 11 – 56.32%
vs AV 12 – 46.8%
Crimson Hunter with no Exarch, Guided
vs AV 10 – 79.29%
vs AV 11 – 73.36%
vs AV 12 – 63.6%
Crimson Hunter with an Exarch, not Guided
vs AV 10 – 74.69%
vs AV 11 – 70.37%
vs AV 12 – 60.94%
Crimson Hunter with an Exarch, Guided
vs AV 10 – 85.1%
vs AV 11 – 80.19%
vs AV 12 – 71.22%
Quad Gun manned by a BS 4 model
vs AV 10 – 29.68%
vs AV 11 – 17.64%
vs AV 12 – 8.79%
Quad Gun manned by a BS 5 model
vs AV 10 – 35.19%
vs AV 11 – 20.88%
vs AV 12 – 8.93%
Reaper Exarch w/ Fast Shot using an Icarus Lascannon, Guide
vs AV 10 – 40.94%
vs AV 11 – 33.58%
vs AV 12 – 25.90%
vs Heldrake – 17.64%
Reaper Exarch w/ Fast Shot using an Icarus Lascannon, with Guide
vs AV 10 – 46.70%
vs AV 11 – 38.43%
vs AV 12 – 29.79%
vs Heldrake – 20.46%
As you can see the Crimson Hunter is far and above any other entry in our codex for killing flyers. Running a distant second are Warp Spiders, guided or not, followed by War Walkers with Bright Lances.
If you see any problems or think of any suggestions for improvements, let me know.
EDIT: Updated the numbers for Crimson Hunters. I had a 2 where a 1 should have been when calculating pen results and it skewed the numbers by 3-7%. I added results for War Walkers with Scatter + EML, War Walkers with Scatter + Bright Lance and Icarus Lascannon manned by a Reaper Exarch with Fast Shot.
So what do you guys think? This is a nice way to gauge pure offense, but does it settle the matter? I feel the less obvious factors such as mobility, reserves, and durability impact the choice as to what AA units to in a list should also be heavily considered as well. -ed