Acolytes are a combat mainstay of the Cult forces. How can we get the most out of them?
I like acolytes – the models, which look great and are fun to paint; and the way they play on the tabletop. I love the idea of hordes of them pouring out of tunnels and from inside ruins, waving mining weapons and claws, and sweeping over the enemy in a chittering tide. But the pragmatist in me still wants to know how to get the most of these key combat troops. So, let’s get into it.
BASIC WEAPONS - SHOOTING
A standard acolyte comes with a variety of ranged weapons – autopistol, blasting charges and frag grenades. So we’re immediately presented with options even before we start messing around with load-outs. Going with blunt averages (3.5 shots with a frag, 2 with a blasting charge), the blasting charge comes out on top in almost every scenario. A frag grenade is the better option against T2 and T10, T3 with a 5+ save or worse, and T5 with no save. In short, unless you’re going after guardsmen or your own neophytes, stick to the blasting charges.
The other option available to every acolyte in a brood is the hand flamer. If you have the points, and aren’t just planning to drop five acolytes out of sight somewhere for objective purposes, then get hand flamers. As a weapon, they’re clearly superior – all the stats are the same, except that hand flamers give you d6 shots that hit automatically, against autopistols with one shot that hits half the time. With average rolls, the hand flamer is seven times more effective than the autopistol (dropping to just over five times more effective if the autopistols are benefitting from crossfire). By way of practical comparison, 108 points buys us 12 acolytes with pistols, or 9 acolytes with hand flamers. 12 pistols at BS4 score 6 hits. 9 hand flamers average 31.5 automatic hits. If you intend to shoot at things, get hand flamers.
[Hand flamers are also very useful for Crossfire. A 5-acolyte brood with hand flamers automatically scores enough hits to drop a marker; a brood with autopistols has a 3% chance of achieving the same, and you’d need at least 9 acolytes to have even a 50/50 chance of gaining a marker with pistols, spending 81 points to do what the 60-point hand flamer brood does every time.]
Before we move on, let’s also pick up the Cult Icon. At 20 points, it more than pays for itself by the time you’ve regained 3 basic acolytes, or 2 hand flamer acolytes, and is virtually break-even if you get back just one acolyte with a mining weapon. If you expect a tooled-up brood to survive at least one round of loses, it could be the way to go.
MINING WEAPONS
The big hitters. The heavy mining weapons are some of our best combat options. But how do they stack up against each other?
For the purposes of comparison, rather than getting into mean averages for damage and the like, I’m going to run with an imaginary set of 36 attacks that happen to roll a perfect distribution of scores each time. So the damage generated will be ridiculously high, but as all three weapons are starting in the same place, that doesn’t matter. I’m assuming WS3+, and directing the attacks against T4 models with a 3+ save (roughly marines, but it means that against anything less than that, the numbers below wouldn’t change, as they’re already based on 2+ to wound and no save).
o The drill would land 24 hits. Due to its special rule, that also means 24 wounds. At AP-4 those wounds bypass power armour, causing 24 damage. In addition, 6 of the hits would have been on 6s, generating 12 mortal wounds, for a total of 36 damage.
o The saw would also land 24 hits. At S8 against T4, it scores 20 wounds. Again, AP-4 means no saves, for 40 damage across 20 damaging hits.
o The cutter only gets 18 hits, due to the -1 to hit penalty. It achieves 15 wounds, with no saves, and scores 45 damage across those 15 damaging hits.
So as a baseline, each of the three weapons causes the most casualties against a specific target – the drill against 1-wound models, the saw against 2-wounds, and the cutter against 3-wounds (despite the -1 to hit).
-1 Damage
Various YouTube commentators have pointed out that the saw in particular will suffer in an environment that features a lot of -1 damage abilities. This is true. Assuming that such a rule was in effect, the table would then look like this:
Attacking something like Death Guard, the saw takes a big hit against 2-wound targets, and a fairly big hit against 3-wounds (where the cutter also suffers). On the other hand, the drill is unaffected, merrily shredding away a single wound at a time. In this scenario, the drill produces the most dead bodies in every category: no damage is wasted on overkill; none is lost to damage reduction – an ideal result.
Invulnerable Saves
Against invulnerable saves of any kind (or a 2+ save) the drill is also at an advantage – whilst the damage characteristic of the weapons varies, an invulnerable save will affect each of them proportionately – a 4++ save will cut out 50% of the damaging hits. Except that around a third of the drill’s output is through mortal wounds, which ignore invulnerable saves. Here’s how they look against the same T4 target, but this time with a 4++ save:
(I know the rock cutter can’t kill 7.5 models – with 15 wounding hits, the averages mean that 7 or 8 get through the save, and 7.5 is a useful compromise). Here, the drill is the better option against 1-wound and 2-wound targets, whilst the cutter edges it against 3-wounds.
Characters
Having introduced invulnerable saves into the mix, I’m going to run one more example. This time, rather than using a 36-dice model, I’m going to cut it down to 12 dice – a brood of 10 acolytes can carry four mining weapons, for 8 attacks. If we can buff them, via Our Time is Nigh or Might From Beyond, we can push that to 12 attacks (which is also neater to work through practically). The target here is an annoyingly survivable Gravis Captain with an Iron Halo, for T5, a 4++ save, and 7 wounds.
o The drills score 8 hits, which means 8 wounds too, despite the increased toughness. The Iron Halo saves 4, meaning that 4 go through. However, we’d also expect to get two 6s in our hit rolls, for 4 more mortal wounds, and a total of 8 damage. The Captain is dead.
o The saws also get 8 hits. At S8 against T5, that’s an awkward 5.3 wounds. The Halo reduces that to 2.65 damaging hits (let’s call it 3), for 6 damage in total. The Captain survives.
o The cutter only gets 6 hits, due to the -1 to hit penalty. It achieves 4 wounds, of which 2 beat the Halo, causing a total of 6 damage. Again, the Captain survives.
Firstly, we should note that the jump to T5, combined with the 4++ save, puts a significant dent in the hitting power of some of our best combat weapons – those four saws would have put down a combat squad of marines, but won’t finish off the captain. And that’s with extra attacks in play – without them, none of the options would have got over the line here. As it is, even with the extra attacks, only the drill would expect to kill the Captain – both the saw and cutter fall short, and probably won’t get a second chance to finish the job.
This is another situation where the drills’ persistence pays off – the triple threat of ignoring toughness, ignoring damage reduction and partly ignoring invulnerable saves is a potent combination. Oh, and it bypasses Transhuman as well – no wound roll, no failing to wound on 1-3s. At baseline, the drill seems a less useful option against multi-wound targets; but as soon as other factors come into play, the drill’s ability to remain largely unaffected by them means that it has a very good claim to be the best all-rounder of the three.
Demolition Charges
Not one of the close combat mining weapons, but these take up the same slot, so are competing against them. And, well, they’re an option. It’s difficult to run a direct comparison, because one is a ranged weapons with variable attacks that can only be used twice, and the other is a combat weapon with two attacks. But that said, a shooting attack with demolition charges should do more damage than a saw or cutter if the charges roll 3 attacks (unless the target has a 3+ or better save), and more damage against all targets if we roll 4 or more attacks. Once again, the rock drill bucks this trend against 1-wound targets, but we might have guessed that.
Shifting to a slightly more tactical perspective, there might be a place for charges, but it’s fiddly – we’d need the acolytes to end their move within 6” of a target (without advancing, and without coming in from underground because they can’t get close enough). If we can manage that, great. And to be honest, the two shots thing is probably less of an issue than you might think, as it’s likely that any acolyte brood operating that closely to the enemy on a consistent basis are either winning the game anyway or dead. Just a thought.
MINING WEAPONS OR CLAWS AND KNIFE?
Having established how effective the mining weapons are, it’s also useful to compare them to the basic combat weapons available to acolytes – the claw and knife combination, which plays as a single weapon that confers an extra attack whenever the acolyte fights. With those three attacks, an acolyte can broadly expect to kill a guardsman (1.3 guardsmen), or wound a marine two thirds of the time. But the key question here is how that compares to the mining weapons. For comparative purposes, two basic acolytes with claws are 18 points, and a single acolyte with any of the mining weapons is 19 points – close enough to call that a match, I feel.
Against 1-wound targets, the claws are almost always the better option (unless the enemy has T5+ and a 2+ save). The exception here is the drill (unsurprisingly), which is the way to go against anything T4+ and anything with a 3+ save or better. With only two attacks, the multi-wound mining weapons end up over-killing their targets and wasting their efforts, whereas the claws make it count every time, and have three times as many attacks for the points.
Against 2-wound and 3-wound targets, the claws remain the better choice against T3, 5+ save targets or worse (assuming you can find targets with a guardsman’s profile and multiple wounds), but the mining weapons are superior against everything else. The more efficient damage profile and high AP make the big hitters so much better that the extra attacks of the claw acolytes can’t keep up.
Broadly (and comparatively) speaking, mining weapons are wasted against 1-wound targets, and worthwhile against everything else. Once again, the drill looks like a good all-round option, able to flex between different target options without losing effectiveness.
ACOLYTE LEADERS
Acolyte leaders have a couple of options – they can swap out their combat weapons and/or pistol weapons for a bonesword and/or lashwhip, giving us six potential set-ups:
o Bonesword and lashwhip
o Bonesword and pistol
o Bonesword and claws
o Lashwhip and pistol
o Lashwhip and claws
o Claws and pistol
The comparison between bonesword and claws is an interesting one – the sword brings +1 strength, and more damage, but the claws give an extra attack. Against 1-wound targets, the advantage varies – the claws are better against T2, 3, 6, 7 and 10; the sword is better against T5, 8 and 9; and they match each other against T4. Narrowing things down to the common spread of T3-5, the claws are good for T3/4, the sword for T4/5. But once we move up to 2-wound targets, the bonesword becomes the better option in every case. As with other options available to acolytes, we can optimise against hordes, or against multi-wound. As a suggestion, if the brood is going with claws, so should the leader; if you’re taking mining weapons to hunt bigger prey, giving the leader a bonesword is more likely to help out.
The lashwhip doesn’t change the balance of power between claws and sword – it just makes them both better (although taking one does remove the option of running with both claws and a sword for maximum flexibility). Assuming that we avoid the slightly odd option of lashwhip and pistol, the question here is this: is the improved combat ability worth giving up shooting for? And the answer is: maybe. If we’re losing an autopistol, then go for it – the autopistol was doing almost nothing anyway, and the lashwhip combo provides more kick. But if the leader has a flamer, he can potentially do more damage with that than he gains from the reroll, although it varies depending on the target.
There’s not a clear answer here – if you plan to make prolific use of flamers, hold on to it; if they’re a back-up plan, and you want your acolytes in close and hitting things wherever possible, the lashwhip makes the leader better in combat. And if you’re looking for a cheap and cheerful brood for objective and mission purposes, there’s an argument for the lashwhip and claws option – it’s free, only means giving up an autopistol, and gives a little extra combat punch which might come in handy.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
That’s a lot of text. So here are the main headlines:
o Hand flamers are better than autopistols, and far more points efficient. Take them if you can
o An icon will probably pay for itself if you get the chance to use it (increasingly so in broods with upgrades)
o The rock drill is the most effective mining weapon against hordes, and has the strongest claim to be the best all-rounder for all-comers lists
o Bonesword and lashwhip are the strongest all-round combat option for leaders, but other options will be more effective in some situations
As I may have mentioned before, the primary purpose of these blogs is to improve my own army selections (when I’m aiming for effectiveness over narrative). So, what does all of this mean for my own army? At the moment, acolytes are covering two main roles for me, with broods of five hunting objectives and broods of ten arming up with mining weapons and going after enemy units. I don’t think this changes that broad outline, but it does affect the details.
o For objectives and secondaries: brood of five acolytes, autopistols, leader with claws and lashwhip – the bare minimum 45 point unit, small footprint, looking to stay out of sight (so no point in upgrading the guns), with a lashwhip just in case combat presents itself (and because it’s free).
o For crossfire: brood of five acolytes, hand flamers, no leader upgrades – they drop in, flame something, get at least five hits, maybe survive into the next turn, all for 60 points.
o For combat:brood of ten acolytes, four rock drills, leader with bonesword and lashwhip, and maybe flamers and/or an icon if points allow. 135 points (150 with five flamers, 145 with an icon, or 170 with both).
If you made it this far, get yourself a cookie (and thank you) – I think this is the longest one yet. Hopefully it’s given you a few pointers for maximising the potential of your acolytes, and brings the Day of Ascension a step closer. Enjoy the rebellion.