Sanguinary Guard vs Death Company

I spent some time down in my "beats lab" last night to dabble around on testing some thoughts on Blood Angel list building and who in reality is better. 

Being a scientist, I decided the best thing to do was run some experiments. 

187 or so points of Sanguinary Guard vs the +/- same in Death Company!

Any bets here?

Experiment #1 (all as modeled)
5 Sanguinary Guard, 2 Power fists, 3 Swords, 2 infernous pistols, 3 angelus bolt guns:

7 Death Company with jump packs, 1 power fist, 2 power axes, 3 power swords, 1 chainsword, 5 bolt pistols, 2 plasma pistols:

Going along with my earlier post, the Sanguinary Guard have a total of 10 wounds with a base 2+ save, while the Death Company has 7 wounds, and a base 3+ save and 6+ FNP.  The Sanguinary Guard have 8 shooting dice and the Death Company have 7 (as modeled).

Both get red thirst (+1 to wound rolls on turns charging or charged), Death Company also have black rage (+1 attack when charging). Both can jump 12 inches.

I randomly started the test with a few spectators nearby.  Is that Captain Slamguinius?

The units were randomly started +/- 36 inches apart.  Sanguinary Guard (SG) won the roll to go first. The SG advanced 15 inches.  In response the Death Company (DC) jumped forward and shot, putting one wound on a SG.

   

The DC then charged, but lost one model to overwatch. 

In the first round, the DC went first, with the dice not so hot.  They assaulted with 18 dice, needing 3s and 4s to hit and 3's and 2's to wound.  They caused 5 wounds, of which three failed.  The SG were now down to 3 models (all swords).

In response, the SG swung back, 6 attacks, 3's to hit, 3's to wound. They caused 3 wounds, two failed. The DC were now down to 4 models to 3 SG models. 

On turn 2, the SG first use the 1 remaining infernous pistol, removing another DC marine.  The DC are now down to 3.  In the continued assault, the SG swordsmen removing the remaining three DC models. 

Experiment #2 (Same as Above)
I reran the experiment.  It pretty much ended exactly the same way.  The SG again won the roll to go first, charged in, lost a few models (I kept removing the power fist guys as casualties for the SG, whereas the preference for the DC was to remove the lower AP weapon armed models first).

After two turns it ended the same way.  The SG still had 3 models on the table, and the DC had none.

Experiment #3 (Who needs Jump packs or Pistols?)
In this case I swapped out the jump pack, pistol packing DC for:

10 Death Company, 9 bolters, 9 chainswords, and 1 Thunderhammer.
(10 wounds, 9-18 shooting dice)

I have to paint up and add chainswords to these models...probably will "mag-loc" them to their power packs if possible.

Since they were fighting around some wreckage, I did include a +1 cover save to units within the wreckage from shooting).

In this case, the DC won the roll to go first.  After checking ranges, determined to advance a total of 11 inches.  Their bolters were still out of range.  The SG jumped forward to meet them.  The SG opened up with shooting, taking one DC marine down. The SG then failed their charge.

Sorry for the next few shots being upside down!

On turn 2, the DC started with shooting - 16 dice, needing 3s to hit and 4s to wound.  The DC then charged.  The SG overwatch caused no wounds.  The DC assault was a large block of dice - 8 DC chainsword marines with black rage =  32 dice, plus 3 thunderhammer dice.  Needing 3's or 4's to hit and 3's or 2's to wound.  35 dice resolved to 18 (all chainsword) wounds, resolved to 1 unsaved (2+) wound. In response, 4 DC were removed.  We are down to 4 SG vs 5 DC.

In turn 3, the assaults continued.  The DC, going first, removed another SG marine and put a wound on another. 

In response, the three remaining SG (shooting one DC with an infernous pistol) completed the assault by wiping out the remaining DC (again). 

So...what do we get out of this? Note I did not bother with morale checks for either side.  That was intentional, as I wanted them to fight it out.  Overall, I think it was a good measure of what the Sanguinary Guard could do.  Where possible I supercharged the plasma pistols on the jump pack DC, to try to overcome the SG better.  It failed.  One thing I do need to practice better having grown a bit rusty in the past few months is to use the pistols every turn possible.  Every little bit helps!

Overall, I'm thinking that the decision to use SG vs DC will be local meta-driven.  Certainly I'm thinking the SG are better - their Angelus boltguns are assault and -1 AP, and they all pack power weapons. If anything the infernous pistols they are modeled with are a point of inefficiency, compared to cheaper plasma. For now they stay... 

I may try some lists with just more SG in them.  Especially where I suspect I'll be encountering other marine equivalents.  Overall, I should look at lists that separate the SG from the DC, in order to more effectively benefit from their differences. 

DC may get relegated to games where I am to encounter xenos or astra militarum. Maybe create some Lemartes' led lists and really focus those lists on the DC strengths.  I am still looking to replace DC pistols with bolters now.  It is something I just need to get completed.  Sorry for the hand swaps little model dudes! I did not create the rules as currently written!

Another piece of work to look at is evaluating who is better -  a Sanguinary Ancient - or Chapter Ancient! 

What are your thoughts?

MING

Analytical thinking or Am I Thinking Too Much

I'm working on getting my MoJo back on 40K. 

This weekend, I went to the Huzzah!! Gaming Con, to visit friends and see the vendors.  In particular, one vendor I follow - from new Hampshire (Adler Hobby's Board Game Cafe) - had stated they were bringing gaming mats from Frontline Gaming - and I wanted to get one! So I got the pretty cool Scrapyard mat. It was interesting - they had come with maybe 30 mats, and by the time I got there noon on Saturday they were down to 3. Everybody wants one! 

I also bought from them the Bolt Action 2nd Edition rule book. I have the models - I just needed the rules! BTW, Bolt Action is a fun, easy game - my FLGS, Crossroad Games - will hopefully have a Bolt Action day monthly.  Its kinda funny.  Bolt Action uses points.  Bolt Action was designed by a guy who has roots to 40K. Bolt Action also has strong links to osprey publishing.

I digress.

Back to 40K:

Last night was all about looking at a means for my brain to analytically compare units. 

I took out a pencil (a valuable skill at that), and started a simple table.

The goal was to more clearly see the point efficiencies in terms of getting the maximum number of wounds on the table and the maximum number of dice in the shooting phase. 

Unit name, points, weapon points, total points, wounds, firepower (number of dice it fires), and then calculated some factors: wound value (total points divided by #wounds), and fire value (total points divided by #firepower). I did it this way so most numbers would be greater than 1, vs the reciprocals where they would be smaller than 1.

Then I ran the numbers for some typical units in the Blood Angels codex just to see where they would be.  I also allowed be time to really examine the details. 

It really started to show some interesting things that you may already know. 

Twin-assault cannon razorbacks are better than twin assault cannon predators and they are better than twin assault cannon Baal Predators.

Intercessors with bolt rifles are better than scouts with bolters who are better than tactical marines with bolters.

Some of these things you may already know. 

Overall, it is for me like one of those questions in College-level economics class on a decision to buy or not. 

I have more details to evaluate, but it starts to lead one down the path of looking to improve the model collection as a means to get more competitive. 

I'll see if I can get you some interesting tidbits tomorrow.

As a weird teaser, did you know of the vehicles, the Blood Angels vehicle with the best Wound Value is the WHIRLWIND? And it is right up there for Fire Value too with the Castellan launcher. 

Overall, the premise is that Space Marine Players need to be more points efficient. 

I may look to add a quality factor of some kind to balance out stuff. 

Interestingly, if you create a Quality Factor = wound value divided by the fire value, a Tactical Squad has a Quality Factor = 1.  Hmmmmm.......

MING