Imperial Fists 10th Company Planning

I am starting to look at the 10th company part of my SM army. Basically it is a reserve list heavy on infiltrators, scouts and bikes. The Space Marine Captain on a Bike will lead one of the bike squads and the Space Marine Chapter Master (Master of Recruits) will drop in with the Sternguard Veterans. I am still tooling the war-gear but this is the basic layout.

Imperial Fists 10th Company (2,000 points)

HQ
Space Marine Captain on a Bike
Space Marine Chapter Master, Digital Weapons; Hellfire Rounds; Melta Bombs; Artificer Armour; Bolter x1; Relic Blade x1

Elite
5-Man Sternguard Veteran Squad, Combi-Meltagun x1; Melta Bombs; Bolter; Power Fist
Drop Pod w/ Deathwind Missile Launcher

Troop
5-man Space Marine Bike Squad, Flamer x1; Meltagun x1; Melta Bombs
5-man Space Marine Bike Squad, Flamer x1; Meltagun x1; Melta Bombs
5-man Space Marine Bike Squad, Flamer x1; Meltagun x1; Melta Bombs
5-man Scout Squad, Camo Cloaks; Sniper Rifle x3; Missile Launcher; Sergeant Telion
10-man Scout Squad, Camo Cloaks; Bolt Pistol; Combat Blade;
10-man Scout Squad, Camo Cloaks; Bolt Pistol; Combat Blade;

Fast
Land Speeder Storm, Multi-Melta
3x Land Speeder (1 Squadron), Multi-Melta x3; Multi-Melta x3
5-man Scout Bike Squad, Cluster Mines; Bolt Pistol; Shotgun; Astartes Grenade Launcher x3;

Tactical Analysis
Scoring units: 6-8
Inf: 31 models + 21 bikes
Vehicles: 4 models + a Drop Pod

Questions:

Q. Should I lower the number of Bike Squads and boast the number of men in each?

Q. Should I make a 5-man scout drop team for the Speeder Storm adn what would be the weapon load out?

Q. Am I too melta heavy and should trade out for some flamers?

Project: Imperial Fists, chaplain v2 day 3

So, he is close to completed. He needs some Fist Icons and he should be ready to dispense the Emperor's justice. Chaplain Xander 2.0 ready for duty

Project: Imperial Fists, chaplain v2 day 2

So the chaplain is coming along. The base colors are done and ink washes are applied. All the highlighting and detail are next. Looking at him this morning I need to gun metal the intake jets. I am really happy with the Crozius handle the red came out great.

Painting black is always a process of cleanup. I started with white primer as light under coat. I find it helps pick out details, like the grenade under his arm. Would have never seen that had I started with a black under coat.

Being mostly black I will be relying mostly on lining to do highlighting. my current technique is too use a strong light source from above and paint the places where light strike the model. The secret is use a strong light.

Project: Imperial Fists, chaplain v2

Thanks Heresy Is the Only Answer I have a new jump chaplain . I have been using a converted walking chaplain up unitil now. Painting the new terminator chaplain was a great deal of fun, so I am looking forward to this. It is also good to get back to Project: Imperial Fists which has lag a little with me being distracted by Eldar.

I am going to use this opportunity to re-work my jump squad a little. Right now it is 8 man squad including a flamer, a sergeant with plasma pistol and power fist. I going to drop the plasma pistol and power fist and bump it up to 10-man with 2 flamer. The power fist has been under performing and I have only killed myself with the plasma pistol. On the other hand the flamer have done great job in almost every game. This will also give me the option of combat squading them. All for about the same point cost, roughly.

Deep Strike Mishaps Risk

How dangerous is deep striking? Well I am going to try to layout a method of estimating the risk of a deep striking mishap. The first step is to figure out the scatter dice probability. RobotBeef over at Mathhammer has a great post on this and I am going to use his method.

Mathhammer

P = ( 1/3 ) + ( ( POSS / 36 ) * 2/3 )
- P=Probability that blast templates won't scatter
- POSS=Number of possibilities 2D6 will be equal to or less than your BS

Using this method we get the following rough percentages for BS 3 and 4 scatter dices:

BS 3 (40-50-70-90 rule)
On Target = 39%
< 2" = 52%
< 4" = 72%
< 6" = 89%
> 6" = 11%

BS 4 (45-60-80-95 rule)
On Target = 44%
< 2" = 61%
< 4" = 81%
< 6" = 94%
> 6" = 6%

We now make a rule that we can remember while playing. For Space Marines it is 45-60-80-95. 45% of the time we will have an On Target result, 60% will be within 2", 80% within 4", 95% within in 6" and 5% greater than 6". You can memorize the number to use as a guide or add it to your quick reference data. Knowing the scatter dice probability helps in targeting templates.

(*Edit for clarity, thanks Farmer Geddon *)

While Deep Strike does not reduce the scatter by the sources BS, the scatter dice probability works the same way. We can use the same math (by using a BS of 0) to work out a rule of thumb. It looks like this:

Deep Strike
On Target = 33%
< 2" = 37%
< 4" = 41%
< 6" = 44%
> 6" = 56%

Here is the Diagram visualize how this pertains to deep strike.




Next let's look work out a rule of thumb for using this information to get a rough estimate of risk. To mishap we need to both scatter the distance the direction of the object we want to avoid. On Target always equal no mishap, so if our On Target percentage is 33% our chance to mishap is lower than 66%. How much lower can be estimated by looking at the chance to land greater than that distance and in that direction.

Anything outside the drift range doesn't affect chance for a mishap nor does anything where you don't drift in the wrong direction. Even on the board edge 33% of the time you will be on target and 50% of the remaining time you will drift away from the edge. That means you risk is only ~33%. If the board edge is 2 inches away 37% of the time you will land On Target or less than 2 inches away from target and 50% of the remaining time you will drift away from the edge. That puts your risk at ~30%. You can start to see where you can do this math in your head once you know the scatter dice probability.

In the below diagram there is a area of terrain we have a mishap risk greater than 2 inches from the target and covering about a quarter of the area.



Right off the bat we know the mishap risk is less than 37% and greater than 0%. In face we can narrow it down more, we know it is 25% of the 41% circle. So we take 59% (100-41%) and divide it in our head 60/4 is 15 so the risk is ~15%. We can lower that risk to ~13% by moving another 2 inches from the terrain.

Using 6th grade math we can estimate the deep strike mishap risk quickly by using the scatter dice probability and simple fractions. Knowing the risk can mean that one inch that wins the game or avoid losing a squad of Terminators.

10 minute Eldar Test Results

Ok a layer of Mechrite Red fix the pink problem. So after three tests the 10 min process seems to work well. Green is still winning for the army color, so I may be going Biel Tan. Aspect warriors also be done this way. I should start looking at ~750 point lists.

Right now it is looking like:
Farseer
10 Guardians w/StarCannon and Warlock
5 Pathfinders
10 Dire Avengers w/Exarch and Wave Serpent
1 War Walker w/Scatterlasers

Something like that.

Eldar: More paint tests

More 10 min Eldar tests. Working out color. The Gnarls Green (P3) worked well as did the Cygnar Blue (p3). The Gore Red came out too pink, I am going to need to do some more Red testing for Fire Dragons and Warpspiders. The green is leading the way for Guardians squads and tanks, but I am not done with paint tests yet. My goal is to find a color scheme that less clown like but still has the codex look.