40K Deep Thought – Is AP Useless?
So I’ve been playing a lot more than usual of late and I’m starting to come around to a new truism of 5th edition. I think AP values on weapons are meaningless.
Now this isn’t a new idea. Way back in 4th I used to be Mr. Torrent of Fire, and build entire lists around the often forgotten mechanic. Now with the prevalence of that 4+ cover, 3+ armor, intervening units, and every other trick in the book, its just looking like the points costed into the codices for those low AP weapons just isn’t panning out.
These days for me, its all about the rate of fire first, and the AP a distant second. Now you still need enough high strength wepons to deal with vehicles (and yes there is value in the AP:1 modifier versus vehicles), but in general I’d rather be piling ungodly amounts of wounds on targets than a tiny number of low AP ones. As a big user of Cyclones and Typhoons, I can tell you that I’ve been shifting slowly towards saturating target units with volleys of frags instead of the old krak standbye I used to rely on.
So all my newer lists have been targeting high rate of fire weapons, and giving me not only better results, but more regular and predictable ones as well. At the end of the day, folks roll 1s and 2’s, and they all add up.
How do you feel about the AP mechanic for shooting weapons in 5th? How do you prioritize a weapon’s stats when you build lists?
