Acolytes - they have options. Like, real options that require thought and decision-making. So how do we get the most out of them?
Acolytes are one of only two battleline units in the Cult index (alongside Neophytes). Which makes them potentially immortal, I guess. They’ve always been a flexible unit, ranging from incredibly cheap five-acolyte units to grab objectives all the way up to huge mobs springing out of ambush to blatter key targets with their mining tools. A lot of the finesse around list-building has been swept away in the 10th edition index, but we still have some interesting choices.
I’ve generally been including some baseline numbers at the top of these pieces, as a broad tool for comparative purposes, but acolytes is where it breaks down a bit because of the aforementioned options. So no baseline numbers at this point.
[All the maths here makes use of the acolytes’ reroll 1s to hit (which is always on), but not the reroll 1s to wound (which is situational).]
ACOLYTES
Acolytes come with various upgrade options, and you should definitely take some of them. Flamers are better than autopistols; the leader’s cult weapons are better than claws and a knife - there’s no downside to either of these options, and as they’re free, there’s no reason not to take them. In combat, mining tools are better than claws and a knife into almost everything (except T3, 6+ save, one wound), but you must give up your hand flamer to access the mining tool, and that matters. Leader aside, we have three ways to build an acolyte:
Flamer and claws
Demo charge and claws
Mining tool (no shooting)
Both claws and a mining tool are likely to kill a guardsman in combat (exactly as likely, in fact); against anything tougher or better armoured, the mining tool is superior. If you plan to have your acolytes in combat, choose mining tools.
A demo charge is better than a hand-flamer into everything, even at BS5+. The demo charge is likely to kill a marine or wound a terminator (both unlikely outcomes for a single hand-flamer), and likely kills two guardsmen to the flamer’s one. Better, but not devastatingly so. The charge is a single shot weapon (depending on your understanding of the Cult Ambush rule); you need to fire a hand-flamer twice to beat it into guardsmen, four times to do better into marines, and five times to do better into terminators – if you can keep your acolytes within 12” and shooting for five turns, well done. If you want your acolytes to pop up for a single round of shooting, choose demolition charges; if you intend to hunker down in cover as a fire-team, flamers may be better.
Against mining tools, demo charges have a better chance of causing damage into all targets. But when we factor in the higher damage of the mining tools, tools do better than charges into everything except T6 (although much of this damage is wasted into anything with less than three wounds). If mining tools get a second swing, they’re generating more damage than demo charges into everything. (This is a slightly unusual one though, as demo charges and mining tools are competing for the same option slot but aren’t directly comparable as they operate in separate phases).
There’s not really a right answer here, and I think it may depend on how you read the Cult Ambush rules. I believe that the correct way to play returning units is that they are the same unit that was previously destroyed (even if the narrative logic is that it’s new fighters arriving during the battle). As such, there’s no exemption from the demo charge ‘one shot per battle’ rule. If we equip our acolytes with demo charges, we’re diminishing our returns later in the game (although if our opponents good units are all dead by then, it's less of an issue).
Defensively (like the metamorphs) acolytes are pretty vulnerable. The icon potentially gives them a touch more longevity (at the cost of a flamer), but if somebody wants them dead, killing ten acolytes isn’t much of a challenge. Likewise, adding in an Iconward might be a useful addition to a unit we really want to survive, but then, are we really worried about preserving acolytes when we know they’re coming back anyway?
BASELINES
As we said earlier, there are three ways to arm acolytes: flamers and claws; replace flamers with demo charges; replace flamers and claws with mining tools. Additionally, we need to remember that acolytes are active in two phases – shooting and combat (and as hand-flamers are pistols, being in combat doesn’t stop them shooting).
So it’s table time. We’re looking at a couple of things – expected damage output in combat, expected damage output in shooting, and the combined numbers for both. We’ll also look at the demo charge unit after the charges are gone, to see how much of a loss that is.
[Each unit here has ten acolytes, including a leader with leader weapons. Anyone who can has a flamer. Remember, acolytes always reroll 1s to hit.]
What does all that tell us?
Demo charges produce the best overall figures. If they can shoot and fight, they’ll kill 30 guardsmen, 10 marines, and even 3 terminators. Great. Of course, it’s not always easy to pull that off – just coming in from ambush won’t get us close enough for demo charges, and if we use Tunnel Crawlers we can’t charge. If we intend to prioritise shooting (because that’s why we chose demo charges), we’re still very good into marines (7 dead), handy into terminators (2 dead), and perhaps a bit wasted into guardsmen (still 15 dead though, which is three more than we’d manage with flamers alone).
But once those charges are gone, the unit drops to the bottom of the pile – less shooty than a flamers unit, less punchy than a mining tools unit. Demo charges are very much an alpha strike weapon, but perhaps lack the shooting output to really make it count, whilst simultaneously compromising their own efficacy for later turns. That said, if we’re prepared to buff up the unit with a couple of characters, some stratagems and a ridgerunner, it may be worth going all in on the alpha strike.
Predictably, mining tools provide the best combat output into marines and terminators, and the better overall outcome into them too, even with less flamers. In the end, whilst the flamers provide volume of fire, it’s still S3 and AP0 – into anything more than guardsmen, it’s not doing much (so losing four isn't a big deal). On balance, the mining tool option provides greater battlefield flexibility.
Going beyond the baseline, we can really buff flamers if we lean into it: for 3CP (or 1CP and a Nexos), we can have flamers with AP-2 (via Perfect Ambush and a ridgerunner), ignore cover (ridgerunner again, or just coming in from reserves) and +1 to wound (via Coordinated Trap). That’s a fair bit of effort, but would potentially net us 23 guardsmen, 6 marines or 3 terminators (from shooting alone) – for comparison, that’s what we’d expect from the mining tool unit if they get to shoot and fight.
And now we’ve gone there, what if we apply those same buffs to the demo charges? We’re already S12, so can afford to skip Coordinated Trap, but jumping to AP-4 is nice against marines (whilst being completely pointless against guardsmen and terminators). Four demo charges at AP-4 and six flamers at AP-2 wipe out 10 marines (or 11 if we spring for the +1 wound to boost the flamers, which might just be worthwhile if we really want to deal with a full ten marines with a slightly higher degree of statistical confidence).
Rather than trot out all the same commentary on the leaders (go check out the metamorph analysis for the general ideas), I’ll just pick up the ones that directly affect the maths. And point out that a Locus is probably always a good idea, because what’s not to like about Fights First.
We’re also going to focus in on marines at this point, to keep things vaguely wieldy.
BIOPHAGUS
The Biophagus gives the unit Lethal Hits, and a once per game Anti-Infantry 2+ (which is more useful for the claws and knives). Both of these only apply in melee. Lethal hits offers only a minor improvement – the claws get an extra kill (up to 4); mining tools kill two more (for 7). Not a huge improvement, partly because mining weapons wound on 2s anyway, so auto-wounds aren’t a huge deal for them.
If we add in the Alchemicus Familiar, we don’t (on average) gain any more kills – we simply move from rounding up to rounding down, meaning that we become more confident about hitting the likely outcome, but without enough improvement to see the numbers increase overall. Again, this is because Anti-Infantry 2+ is wasted on mining tools. A unit with just claws gains another dead marine (for 5 in total) – the familiar pays off nicely here, moving 27 claw attacks from 4s to wound down to 2s to wound.
[I’m still slightly irked that the Biophagus’ two rules counter each other. Why have the option to wound on 2s when your ‘always on’ ability allows you to bypass the wounds roll in the first place? Just saying. They do work together, but not efficiently.]
PRIMUS: COMBAT
The Primus’ full rerolls are less of a boost for acolytes. They already reroll 1s (and hit on 3s), and if we arm them with flamers (as we should), they’re not rolling to hit at all when they shoot. Still, let’s not turn down even more accurate attacks.
Our mining tool unit now kills 7 marines, and the claw unit picks up 5 marines – both have increased the body-count by two marines. That puts us even with the Biophagus (although the Biophagus can only use the Familiar once per game, so the Primus is usually the better bet).
Interestingly, the Primus/Biophagus combination produces the same outcomes as the Biophagus with familiar. And if we do trigger the familiar, it just boosts the claws by one additional marine, to a total of 6 dead marines.
We’re not seeing a significant boost to damage here. At best, we can generate a 100% increase with the claws, which sounds great but only means three more marines. The mining tools cap out at a 40% increase. And remember, adding a Primus and Biophagus almost doubles the cost of the unit.
Why? Because our various rules are effectively working against each other: the Primus’ full rerolls are somewhat negated by the acolytes in-built reroll 1s to hit; anti-infantry 2+ means nothing to the rock saws; and whilst Lethal Hits helps a lot, it also removes the need to have that anti-infantry effect in play. If we’re aiming for maximum combat synergy, acolytes don’t make it easy.
PRIMUS: SHOOTING
The Primus gives full rerolls to hit for all attacks, including shooting. This doesn’t matter to flamers, but matters a fair bit to demo charges. 5s rerolling 1s hits 14/36; 5s rerolling everything hits 20/36 (that’s 39% against 56%). In practice, and alongside the flamers from the rest of the unit, that should be 9 dead marines (whilst accepting that the number of shots here is highly variable).
And if we go all in, pushing for that AP-4, with full rerolls, ignores cover, and sustained hits (we’d expect maybe seven 6s from our average 26 attacks, for a total of 21 hits), we’re looking at 17 dead marines (or around 4 dead terminators) just from the demo charges. Ouch. Yeah, if you’re going hard with demo charges, the Primus is definitely a good idea.
[No point in looking at the Biophagus here – his buffs are melee only.]
COMPARISON
Instead of looking at all the other units, the most relevant comparison here is with metamorphs. 10 metamorphs cost just ten points more than 10 acolytes. They have the same defensive profile. Acolytes have a better OC and rerolls 1s to hit; metamorphs can scout and have fight-on-death.
In combat:
10 metamorphs kill: 19 Guardsmen, 7 Marines, 2 Terminators
10 acolytes kill: 15 Guardsmen, 5 Marines, 3 Terminators (mining tools)
10 acolytes kill: 15 Guardsmen, 3 Marines, 1 Terminator (claws)
Shooting:
10 metamorphs kill: 12 Guardsmen, 2 Marines, 0 Terminators
10 acolytes kill: 15 Guardsmen, 7 Marines, 2 Terminators (demo charges)
Remember, these are the baseline numbers, before adding any leaders or other enhancements. In combat, metamorphs outperform either flavour of acolytes (except for mining tools into terminators). On the other hand, acolytes with demo charges outgun metamorphs, who are otherwise on par with their acolyte cousins (because ten hand-flamers are ten hand-flamers).
Bolter-shots to kill 10 metamorphs: 45
Bolter-shots to kill 10 acolytes: 45
Don’t get shot. And if you do, remember that metamorphs come back half the time, but acolytes come back every time. For a fragile unit, that’s a significant boost.
CONCLUSION
There’s a lot going on with acolytes. Here’s the short version:
Mining tools are the best combat option
Demo charges provide a very useful ‘bomb’ option, especially when buffed up and dropping in from ambush
Claws and flamers have some utility, but likely lose out to the other two set-ups (given that they’re not any cheaper)
The Primus and Biophagus improve acolyte combat, but not significantly
The Primus really ups the ante with demo charges, and even more so with sustained hits active
It’s interesting that combat acolytes are slightly out-punched by metamorphs (who can helpfully switch attack modes to match their opponent). If all we’re interested in is raw killing power, we’d incline towards the ‘morphs. However, acolytes bring strengths in other areas – they’re twice as useful on objectives, and become more dangerous when contesting them too, as proximity to objectives switches on their reroll 1s to wound ability. Alternatively, acolytes can bring considerably more firepower than metamorphs (for a turn, a least), and this currently looks like the most dangerous way to play them. They could even take on a screening role, in which case a Locus would be a very good enhancement for them.
Overall, it looks like metamorphs retain the upper hand when it comes to in-game tactical flexibility, whereas acolytes are better when tailored to a specific role – either clearing or contesting objectives with mining tools, or just obliterating key targets with demo charges.
Plus, and this is important, acolytes always come back. I suspect it’s going to be incredibly useful to have units we can throw at objectives, knowing they’ve got a good chance to take them in the first place, and that, even if they’re subsequently taken out in turn, they’ll just reappear for another go later in the game. Playing a trading game tilts very much in your favour when you get the traded pieces back and your opponent doesn’t.
Anyway. Enough waffle. Acolytes provide a lot of options, have a strong flex in a couple of directions, and are functionally immortal. What’s not to like? Whatever you do with yours, I hope they bring you victory.