The Primus is primarily a buffing unit, but he also has access to several unique weapons and relics. So whilst we might not want him in combat, which options give him the best chance to fight his way out if he does end up close and personal with the enemy?
In the previous blog, we looked at getting the most out of rending claws and boneswords with acolyte and metamorph leaders. The only other model who gets to carry both a rending claw and a bonesword is the Primus (he's also the only character who can carry a bonesword, and so the only model with access to two of the Cult relics - we'll come back to that). So once again, we're asking which of the two should he be using in any given situation.
There are two differences here, compared to the acolytes and metamorphs. The first isn’t significant – the Primus has a superior WS (at 2+), but that applies equally to both options, so it effectively cancels itself out in the comparison.
More importantly, the Primus’ claw comes with a toxin injector. This means it always wounds on a 2+ (except against vehicles and titanics, where the previous claw/sword discussion would apply). This is a huge boost – wounding on a fixed 2+ is the equivalent of always being twice as strong as your target is tough, or, for example, hitting T8 targets at strength 16. And we get to keep the rending effect too. As you’d expect, the toxin injector completely upends everything we looked at last time.
Here's how the toxin injector claw plays out for a single attack:
And the bonesword:
Throughout, I've highlighted in green whenever a weapon has an advantage, and in orange when it's outmatched. White figure represent parity. Which makes it pretty obvious that it’s not even close. Always wounding on 2s is a powerful tool.
The bonesword is the better option against T2 targets with a 5+ save or better, but that feels a bit like clutching at straws. The bonesword edges it here because both weapons wound on 2s against T2, and wounding on 2s gives the claw an average AP of -1.6 (there's a bit more on this in the other post).
The moment we hit T3, the toxin claw is the better option. And because of the fixed wound roll, it doesn’t lose effectiveness against high toughness targets, cutting through T8 as effectively as T3. Interestingly, that fixed wound roll also means that the toxin claw is stuck with that low average AP – you’ll always have just a 20% chance of a successful wound triggering rending.
As an example of the toxin claw in action: the Primus has a 42% chance of damaging a marine (or any other 3+ save model) with a single toxin claw attack. With four attacks, he's got a 52% chance of causing 2 or 3 wounds, killing one marine; and a 3% chance of all four going through and killing two marines.
And that is pretty much that for the basic Primus. Hit things with the toxin injector claw.
SWORD OF THE FOUR-ARMED EMPEROR
But what about those relic boneswords that only the Primus can access? How do they match up against the toxin injector? The Sword of the Four-Armed Emperor is the Cult of the Four-Armed Emperor relic blade. It has an extra point of AP at -3, and confers extra four attacks (effectively doubling the Primus’ base attacks):
To maintain consistency, I ran this one with two attacks rather than one, as a quick and easy way to replicate the effect of the extra attacks. The colour-coding is based on a comparison with the toxin injector.
The Sword of the Four-Armed Emperor outperforms the toxin claw against anything at T4 or less. Against T5-7, it's better if the save is at least 4+. This is partly an effect of the low overall AP (-1.6) of the toxin claw – at -3AP, the Four-Armed sword has almost twice the AP, which is why is does relatively well against heavier-armoured targets.
SWORD OF THE VOID’S EYE
The other relic bonesword, the Sword of the Void's Eye, isn't locked to a creed. And it's quite nasty: +2S, -3AP, d3 damage, and with full rerolls to hit and wound. It looks like this:
If you really want to up-gun the Primus’ sword, this is the way to do it.
It's important to note that this table represents just damaging hits (rather than total damage per hit, which is variable and doesn’t play well with this format of table). But even so, the Void’s Eye out-performs the toxin injector against anything at T6 or lower, and against anything with a 4+ save or better, regardless of toughness.
Against 2-wound marines, each attack has a 48% chance of killing a marine (72% chance of a damaging hit, then 67% chance of causing 2 or 3 wounds, for 48% overall). With four attacks, the Primus has a 93% chance of landing at least two damaging hits, 69% of at least 3, and 27% of all four landing. At a crude estimation, that's a fair chance of killing a couple of marines, and a 5% chance of killing four (which is slightly more likely that the toxin claw maxing out and killing two marines).
Interestingly, the Four-Armed sword out-performs the Void’s Eye against T2/3 targets (in terms of damaging hits caused) – weight of attacks against a soft target carries the day. But once we factor in the multiple damage of the Void’s Eye, it’s still superior against multi-wound models even at T3.
Do we really want to use up a relic slot giving the Primus a better sword? Probably not. But if you are going to, the Sword of the Void’s Eye is the way to go.
CONCLUSIONS
For a standard Primus, it’s simple: use the toxin injector claw. T2 aside, it’ll do better against any combination of toughness and save.
If you do feel the need to give the Primus a relic, then both relic boneswords hold their own against the toxin injector, and are generally better against the targets you’re likely to be hitting (T4, 3+ save, for example). Given the two relic options, I’d go for the Sword of the Void’s Eye. With the Primus’ 2+WS and his inherent +1 to hit (allowing him to ignore the first negative modifier, should there be one), he’ll almost always be hitting on 2s re-rolling, wounding T3 at the same rate, and even wounding T8+ on 5s re-rolling, which succeeds 55% of the time. Add in -3AP and d3 damage, and that’s not shabby.
In fact, if we really wanted to push it, we could also make him the Warlord for Biomorph Adaptation (+1 strength, +1 attack), opt for the Helix creed (+1 strength), and try to drop Might from Beyond as well (+1 strength and +1 attack). By which point, we’ve got a strength 9, 6 attack beast who hits on 2s rerolling, wounds up to T4 on 2s rerolling, wounds up to T8 on 3s rerolling, has -3AP and d3 damage. That equates to a 52% chance to kill a marine with each attack. Not necessarily the best use of our warlord trait, relic, creed and psychic powers, but probably quite good fun (until the enemy gets to hit back, and we remember that the Primus is a T3 model with a 5+ save and only 5 wounds).
Would I try this for fun? Absolutely. Would I put it in a serious list when I’m trying to win? Maybe not, but it’s nice to know that the option is there.
Thanks for humouring another unnecessarily deep dive into the minutia of the Cult’s weapon options, and I hope you found at least some of it useful. Back to the insurrection, everyone.