The Sanctus comes in two flavours – either standing off with a sniper rifle, or getting up close and personal with the bio-dagger. But is he a nuisance or a real threat?
The Sanctus is something of a rarity – a character whose battlefield role changes completely depending on his weapon. Both versions can be augmented with relics, and both can further supplement their damage output with an anti-psyker stratagem. So is one version of the Sanctus better than the other, or do they simply offer different options? Let’s see what the maths tells us.
SNIPER RIFLE
The sniper comes with a lot of perks. Assuming that we’ve positioned him in cover somewhere away from the frontlines, then he’s pretty hard to target – enemy models need to be within 12”, are at -1 to hit even when they are close enough, and the Sanctus gets up to a 3+ save in cover (with a 5+ invulnerable). So far, so good.
But how good is the sniper rifle? At first look, it’s a mixed bag. It hits automatically, and treats the target as Exposed (for a potential +1 to wound). On the other hand, the rifle is a single-shot weapon that does just two damage (with an extra mortal wound 50% of the time).
[The Sanctus has an interesting interaction with Exposed. The benefits of Exposed (+1 to wound) only trigger if the target also has a Crossfire marker in place. And whilst the Sanctus will drop a marker on his target (an auto-hitting multi-damage weapon is a nailed-on marker), that won’t happen until after all his attacks have been resolved – too late to activate Exposed. So we can use the sniper Sanctus to drop a Crossfire marker on a fresh target, or we can hit an already marked target to benefit from Exposed, but we can’t do both at the same time. Mildly frustrating, and worth remembering when we’re making targeting decisions.]
Assuming that we do have Exposed active (because I’m interested in maximum damage), then we’ll wound targets with T4 or less on 2s (with T5 on 3s, and anything above that on 4s). So for most enemy infantry and characters, we’ll hit automatically and wound on 2s, with AP-3. Let’s try that into the usual spread of a Guardsman (no save); a standard power armour save of 3+ (with Armour of Contempt, resolving to a 5+ save); a Captain (4++ with the Iron Halo); and a Russ tank (wounding on 4s, 5+ save).
As we might expect (given that the hit and wound rolls are constants against most infantry), as the save improves the likelihood of useful damage drops. But it’s also interesting that we’re always more likely to cause three wounds rather than two, and more likely to cause no wounds rather than one – that remains true across all four targets tested above. [3 wounds are more likely than 2, because in the five cases where a wound roll leads to unsaved damage, three of the five also generate a mortal wound, making 3 50% more likely than 2 (except against the Russ, where all successful damage also generates a mortal). No damage is more likely than 1 damage, because 1 damage come from the mortal, meaning that successful saves also have to be made; no damage includes the case where we rolled 1 to wound, and didn't even force a save, making it more likely to occur overall.]
We can also note that there’s a tendency for the potential outcomes to skew quite significantly. Guardsmen aside, the two most likely outcomes in each case are for no damage and three damage. That’s partly because a failed wound roll won’t generate a mortal, whereas successful wound rolls often do – effectively, the sniper rifle tends to succeed twice or fail twice.
THE GIFT FROM BEYOND and NEURAL OVERLOAD
The relic sniper rifle is a bit meh. It gives us +12” range, and +1 damage. And that’s it – same chance of mortal wounds, same strength and AP. For our purposes, it doesn’t do much to change the maths; the only difference to the table above is that 2 damage becomes 3, and 3 becomes 4 (one damage stays as is, because it comes from a successful mortal and failed ‘normal’ attack from the relic, in which case the damage of the weapon doesn’t matter).
Against psykers, Neural Overload (for just 1 CP) is perhaps more useful. It’s not entirely reliable – it works 50% of the time against Ld10 , and 63% against Ld9 – but if it goes off, it’s another d3 mortal wounds (and a further d3 against every nearby unit if the psyker dies, which would be a nice bonus).
How does a fully tooled-up sniper (relic and stratagem) fare into three of the game’s strongest psykers? For this one, we’ll use Tigurius (Ld 10, 5 wounds, 3+ save), Ahriman (Ld 9, 6 wounds, 4++ save) and Eldrad. Eldrad has the same relevant profile as Ahriman, but can’t suffer Perils of the Warp. Which saves us a CP at least. For the purposes of this calculation, we’ll assume that we always fire off Neural Overload, even if we don’t get much damage from the sniper rifle.
[The oddly lower chance of scoring 2 wounds is because the sniper set-up can’t generate a 2-damage outcome with a damage 3 weapon – if the rifle is saved, it can only cause one wound via a mortal; if the rifle goes through, we’re straight up to three wounds and maybe a mortal. We can get there via Neural Overload, but that' affects the surrounding damage points too, so 2 damage remains less likely overall.]
Eldrad is the clear winner here – his Ghost Helm means that the Sanctus can’t kill him with a single shot. Of the other two, Ahriman does better because he has an extra wound over Tigurius. Without that, it’s pretty much a wash, with Tigurius’ better protection against Neural Overload broadly equivalent to Ahriman’s better save against the damage from the sniper rifle. (Against a regular primaris psyker (not a +1Ld Ultramarine), we’d have a 29% chance of a one-shot kill.)
So the sniper variant of the Sanctus is okay. Against non-psykers, he’ll probably inflict a few wounds, especially into more lightly-armoured targets. Into most psykers, and at the cost of a relic and especially the stratagem, he’s got around a 25% chance to take them out first time. Or we could forget damage, and use him to drop a Crossfire marker pretty much wherever we want it, which is handy too.
BIO-DAGGER
Our alternative option is to stick with the bio-dagger. We give up any kind of ranged attack, and the tactical possibilities of Crossfire, but we hang on to the more important special rules – we still can’t be targeted from outside 12”, and are still -1 to hit (a rule that extends into melee, helpfully).
The bio-dagger itself comes with some serious buffs. Firstly, it confers an extra attack, meaning that the Sanctus always fights with 5 attacks. Secondly, wound rolls of 3+ simply inflict mortal wounds. Given that the Sanctus already hits automatically, it means that the bio-dagger bypasses both the hit and save rolls, significantly improving its chances to land damage: for comparative purposes, an imaginary weapon that hits on 2s, wounds on 2s and carries enough AP to prevent a save will cause damage 69% of the time; the bio-dagger causes damage 67% of the time.
One of the interesting functions of the bio-dagger is that it operates almost independently of the enemy model’s stat line – it ignores toughness and saves (including invulnerables), and even hit modifiers; the only thing that makes a difference is FNP. I’m going to ignore FNP for the purposes of all this (because it’s easy enough to factor it back in afterwards if you want to). Here’s the likelihood of causing damage with the bio-dagger:
By way of comparison, the sniper rifle deals a maximum of 3 damage (including the mortal wound) – that means that the bio-dagger has a 79% chance of matching or exceeding the rifle’s output. Assuming the Sanctus can get close enough to hit someone, of course. (And just as an aside, the basic dagger Sanctus has a 13% chance of killing a marine librarian (including Tigurius), or any other five-wound character, psyker or not – it’s less than a fully tooled-up sniper Sanctus, but hasn’t cost us a relic or a CP.)
THE DAGGER OF SWIFT SACRIFICE and NEURAL OVERLOAD
The bio-dagger relic is really interesting, much more so than the Gift from Beyond. It grants a free reroll to wound (the only roll we have to make), and a 3+ chance at an additional d3 mortal wounds. Here’s how that pans out:
It’s a good set of numbers. Even if we discount the potential bonus mortals, we’re up to a 35% chance of killing off Tigurius – that’s better than the sniper can manage even with the stratagem. Once we factor in that bonus, we’re up to a 69% of taking those five wounds (and a 43% chance of the six we’d need for Ahriman or Eldrad). And this isn’t psyker-specific – it’ll work on anyone (short of vehicles or titanic units).
We’re not done yet. We still have the option of dropping Neural Overload. This does only work on psykers (for damage, at least), but takes us up to a potential 11 wounds. The worst case for the stratagem is leadership 10, when it goes off 50% of the time, so let’s go with that.
At this point, we’ve got an 81% chance of taking out Tigurius, 63% of offing Ahriman, and even a 26% chance of killing a daemon prince in a single round of combat. I like those odds, even when it costs a relic and a CP. And we could push things even further with Might From Beyond or even Our Time is Nigh for a sixth base attack, pushing us up to a possible twelve mortal wounds.
Now, this is probably a one-way mission – the Sanctus is unlikely to survive much of a counter-strike – but for just 70 points it’s often going to be worth it. That hit-list of psykers ranges from 135 to 160; even a primaris librarian is 95. So it’s a good trade points-wise, and probably costs the other side a degree of psychic support, buffs, or just general combat power.
And it may be that we don’t even have to get into combat. We can park the Sanctus out of sight somewhere in the mid-table, knowing that we have a fair chance of moving out and charging anyone who comes within 12” or so. That threat may be sufficient to push the other side into playing around it. And if they don’t, we might be able to slip through the lines and eliminate a key threat. Either way, we’re reducing the effectiveness of a key enemy piece.
HEAD TO HEAD
Unlike most characters, the Sanctus can be kitted out in two completely different ways. So whilst the primary focus here has been on damage output, it’s worth bearing in mind that the sniper variant gets a significant boost from various defensive buffs, and also gains Crossfire (which is useful skill on an auto-hitting multi-wound weapon).
Here’s how the two options stack up against each other (using marines as a baseline target) – for each option, I’ve summarised their maximum possible damage; the point at which the cumulative damage tips over 50% (a dagger Sanctus has a 13% chance of causing 7 damage, 46% of 6+, and 79% of 5+; so he has a 50% or better chance of causing 5+ damage); and the most likely single outcome.
The dagger Sanctus out-performs his sniper equivalent at every point. Even the basic dagger comes close to matching the fully buffed sniper. So if we’re looking for that raw damage potential, it’s hard to look past the bio-dagger, especially in the form of the Dagger of Swift Sacrifice.
But there are other factors to consider. The sniper Sanctus has a much higher chance of surviving long enough to make multiple shots, because he’s difficult to target (or pushes our opponent into utilising resources specifically to deal with him, which helps us in a different way). Two shots with the sniper rifle potentially does more damage than a single round of combat with the dagger, and if we make it to a third shot, we’re well ahead.
The sniper also gains us Crossfire. My own preference is to use this as a combat-support option, dropping markers on units that I plan to charge so that I can switch off overwatch or make them fight last. But in that scenario, the Nexos does the same thing, but better (as he has unlimited range, and doesn’t need line-of-sight). The Nexos doesn’t cause any damage, but he saves us 20 points.
That said, the way the Sanctus interacts with Exposed is a little frustrating. To make use of it we’d need to shoot a unit that’s already tagged with a marker, thus wasting the one that the Sanctus could lay down. Or we hit a fresh target, get our guaranteed marker (after the attacks are completed), but don’t benefit from Exposed and drop to wounding on 3s (most of the time). Given that all the numbers above are based on 2s to wound, they all just get a bit worse when we don’t have Exposed in play.
Against all that, the bio-dagger variant is much simpler. He moves up, he threatens, he charges, he kills something, he probably dies. No worrying about Crossfire, or shooting lanes – this take on the Sanctus is all about the mortal wounds, and very little else. But there are potentially so many of them that that’s okay. And as a reminder, his damage output is unaffected by toughness, saves and invulnerable saves. He’ll do the same damage to an Imperial Guard officer as he will to a marine captain swathed in terminator armour and the Sanctic Halo – the bio-dagger just doesn’t care. As such, his relative threat increases as his targets get tougher and better armoured, which feels like a useful tool to have.
CONCLUSION
I can see a role for the sniper, and I think it plays well into some of the Sanctus’ strengths around stealth and cover. But as a personal choice, I definitely prefer the bio-dagger. Just being able to point at my opponent’s toughest heroes and say, ‘Yeah, my Sanctus can kill him in a single round’ is such a power-trip, and a valuable psychological weapon (or would be, if I didn’t then feel the need to explain the odds in unnecessary detail – you’ve read my blogs, you know what I mean). And the model looks amazing, so there’s that too.
More importantly than helping you decide between the two, I hope that all this has given you a good idea of what you can expect from both versions of the Sanctus on the tabletop. Knowing what we’ve likely to kill, and how likely it is to happen, should help us to utilise our assassin to the best of his (and our) abilities. Whichever version of the Sanctus you go with, may he cut down the servants of the oppressor and lead you to glorious victory.