While listening to the excellent Thursday Show within the last couple weeks, I heard the hosts claim that Acolyte Hybrids are ‘Custodes problem solvers’. Let’s see how this claim pans out!
Guest Writer: Dan Meyer
While playing test games is the best way to understand your options, it’s hard to get in enough games to understand all the variables at play and arrive at a reasonable set of expectations. Have no fear though! I am here to help by giving you an in depth look at what you should really expect out of a unit or piece of wargear.
My Shtick
I will look at a unit and their wargear options and help you understand what is the best choice for a given situation or at least help you figure out what you can truly expect from your units. I achieve this by simulating 1,000,000 iterations of that unit attacking a set of common targets that are representative of things you will see in the meta and get a true sample population so we can not only understand the mean of the expected outcome, but also how the variance shapes the outcome distribution. This will give you a much better appreciation for the variability in your game. If you have any questions on my process, ask away!
Do Acolyte Hybrids kill Custodes with ease?
GSC is still fresh on the scene and while not making huge waves, seem to be an excellent and fun book none the less. Our lovely Thursday Show hosts Adam and Dustin suggested recently that Acolyte Hybrids have the goods to throw down against Custodes. We put that to the test today and see how well they can do. For ease, we will assume a 10 man squad where four of the hybrids have been upgraded to special weapons…our focus will be on the Heavy Rock Saws and Heavy Rock Cutters.
| 10x Acolyte Hybrids (6 basic + 4 special weapons*) | |||||
| Weapon | Attacks | Strength | AP | Dmg | Abilities |
| Cult Claws and Knife | 18 | 4 | 2 | 1 | – |
| *Heavy Rock Drill | 8 | X2 | 4 | 1 | Hits are auto-wounds, Unmodified 6’s to hit cause 2 MWs |
| *Heavy Rock Cutter | 8 | X2 | 4 | 3 | -1 to hit |
We will consider a baseline squad with zero upgrades and then stack on combinations of:
- Primus re-roll 1s to hit AND Re-roll 1s to wound
- Pauper Princes Cult Creed/ Impassioned custom Cult Creed trait for the +1 hit on the charge
- Industrial Affinity for ignoring modifiers on Industrial Weapons (mainly affecting the Heavy Rock Cutter)
The combinations we will consider will be: baseline, a, and a+b+c for each of the three weapon sets for a 10 man squad and we will examine these against Custodian Guard and Vertus Praetors!
Let the Simulation Begin…
First, let’s take a look at the very exciting and unique Heavy Rock Drill.
Figure 1: 4x Acolyte Hybrid Heavy Rock Drill vs. Custodes
Holy cow…this weapon is fantastic at dealing damage to Custodes including the super tough Vertus Praetor. Fun fact: The Heavy Rocker Drill actually ignores all transhuman like effects because it doesn’t need to roll to wound! This makes it A+, especially considering the low point investment for what we see here. Even at baseline with no buffs, this weapon outperforms other weapons we have looked at in other articles. Start stacking on the buffs and you can reliably kill at least 1 Vertus Praetor and upwards of 2+ Custodian Guard more often than not. Remember, this is roughly a 130 point Troops choice! Solid.
*** You should note that this will drastically change if the Custodes Shield host is Emperor’s Chosen as they gain a 4+++ against mortal wounds rather than the basic 6+++ they are innately equipped with.
The other weapon option we have up is the Heavy Rock Cutter! This weapon trades out the special features that the saw brought, and serves up a flat 3 damage per attack.
Figure 2: 4x Acolyte Hybrid Heavy Rock Cutters vs. Custodes
In the unbuffed state, this weapon is not very good against Vertus Praetors, now having to roll to wound and not bring any cheeky mortal wounds to the table. However, we don’t need to worry about Emperor’s Chosen in this case and by the time we get full buffs we actually outperform the Heavy Rock Saws. However, this did require a full custom trait setup (as showcased on the Thursday Show with Marco Rubio’s Forces of the Hive Mind list two weeks ago). This enables you to ignore the built in -1 to hit penalty for the cutter. All in all, this weapon is still great even with the simply Primus buff for reroll 1s to hit and wound. Another nice feature is that it brings a higher ceiling to the matchup against Custodian Guard, where even with just Primus buffs you have a 1 in 10 chance to ace an entire 3 man squad…fully buffed brings this to 30%+ odds and that’s just with the special weapon.
Lastly, we take into account the other six members of our squad bringing the default Claws and Knife just so we can be complete. Obviously, there are unit leader upgrades available as well, but we neglect that for simplicities sake. These six members yield 18 attacks (ignoring leader differences if applicable) with actually great stat lines…but the toughness of Custodes is hard to crack.
Figure 3: Acolyte Hybrid Claws and Knife vs. Custodes
Don’t expect these to do much against Vertus Praetors…they may allow you to finish off half a model if you’re lucky. Against Custodian Guard, we fair better, ensuring on average half a models worth of damage or more. This will be great for cleaning up where your special weapons left off and hopefully enable you to finish off three man squads.
Well there you have it! I’d say the Thursday Show was spot on with its assessment of this simple troop choice. Acolyte Hybrids with either of the two fancy industrial weapons options we looked at here deals way more damage than you would expect out of a ~130 point unit (depending on your load out). I personally really like the heavy rock saws as they are transhuman proof and give you access to mortal wound output. The cutter is no joke as well and definitely worth considering for its straight forward damage potential. There are other ways to boost this squad in the codex with things like Might from Beyond for an additional attack per model and that will only push this simple unit to go above and beyond typical expectations for a troops unit.
Let me know if you have any questions, comments or concerns with any of the results you have seen here! And of course, I welcome all suggestions for future simulations!
The Emperor Protects,
Dan
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