Warhammer 40K: Will The New Toughness Help Stop the Alpha-Strike?
Games Workshop has shown off the vehicle toughness increase and a few weapon strengths — will it stop the Alpha-Strike in 10th?
Let’s just get this out of the way first: we don’t have all the info yet. That said, we’ve got a pretty good chunk of stat blocks to compare and we can extrapolate a few things. What we can say for sure is that the Toughness stat got a bump in 10th while Strength remained relatively flat. That means, if the Strength vs Toughness chart doesn’t change a ton, 10th Edition Warhammer 40,000 will be less lethal than its predecessor. And that could really impact things like Alpha-Strike armies.
Toughness Vs Alpha-Strike
So, really quick, what do I mean by “Alpha-Strike” armies. These are armies that are built to destroy the opponent’s ability to fight back effectively in a single round — typically round one or two depending on when their forces are brought to bare. These armies put out so much firepower that the targets simply melt before they can be a threat. Some might call them Glass Cannon armies or All-in Gimmick armies but the results are pretty much the same. If they get to “do their thing” there’s not much left for the opponent to do in response but pick-up models.
Alpha-Strike armies have been an issue for…a while and GW has tried several ways to combat them in the past. But I think there’s always been a fundamental issue in that 40k has ranged attacks that can do massive damage and that playstyle is typically effective. So why wouldn’t you build an army to destroy your opponent as quick as possible?
But I think that in 10th that play style is going to run into a Toughness issue. Looking at the Rhino’s profile from above it’s starting with Toughness 9 and 10 wounds and a 3+ save. Okay…that’s not crazy tougher than it was before. So let’s compare that to one of the new weapons we saw previewed:
The Melta Rifle used to be a perfectly reasonable option for popping a Rhino. And, in theory, it still is. But how reliable is a squad of 3 Primaris Eradicators going to be at popping a Rhino now? For simplicity sake (and given we only have the stats of the Melta Rifle) we’re going to assume we’ve got 3 Melta Rifles in the unit. And we’ll check the math twice — once at 18″ and once under half range to see if the extra damage helps. We’re also going to assume they have to move to get in range as we are looking at an “Alpha-Strike” style here, so no +1 to hit from not moving.
Bring Out The Mathhammer
BS is 3+, so you’ve got a 66% chance to hit. So, with three shots, one misses. And you’ve got a Strength 9 vs a Toughness 9 — again, assuming no change to the Strength vs Toughness chart, that means you’re wounding on a 4+, which is a 50% chance. So one shot gets through. The AP is high enough to bypass the armor and we’re over half range now so that’s D6 damage. D6, no matter what you roll, is still less than 10 wounds.
Fast forward and say we’re underhalf. Same odds until the damage portion which is now D6+2, which is still less than 10 wounds. “Oh man, no one takes a minimum size of Primaris Eradicators! And what if you roll hot!? You’ll melt that rhino every time!” Yes…the Melta Rifle is the Sex Panther of vehicle destruction: 60% of the time, it works every time.
Now, we’re also leaving out re-rolls and bonuses and we don’t even know what the equal units of points are to compare here. Can 200 points of a squad kill another unit that’s also 200 points in one volley? We don’t know yet! But what I can say is that 3 Melta Rifles shooting at a single Rhino will need some luck to destroy it in a single volley. Does that prove theory that the new Toughness increases will prevent the Alpha-Strike problem?
Maybe, maybe not. We don’t have enough data on the unit stats or damage output. But considering we were looking at a dedicated anti-armor unit vs a RHINO and the Rhino wasn’t completely and reliably dead at the end of our little math test is a good sign. The Repulsor above would take all three shots and have a good chance at not being melted in one go, too.
Again, the lethality we’ve seen so far vs the Toughness we’ve been shown is pointing to the Toughness side being able to hold out longer than the previous edition. But it’s not just the Toughness factor either. Vehicle degradation is also changing:
“A lot of vehicles used to suffer from characteristics that degraded as they took damage. Most of those now simply suffer a penalty to their hit rolls when reduced to one-third of their starting wounds – leaving big vehicles and monsters in the fight to the last. And many vehicles don’t degrade at all, we intentionally wanted to only keep these when they felt meaningful.”
End of the Alpha-Strike?
I’m not calling the Alpha-Strike play style dead yet. However, I think that 40k is going to see a massive shift in the meta. And of course it will — it’s a new edition! With the Toughness changes and the Character changes (particularly the auras and joining units) armies are just going to play differently in the new edition. Players will always seek out those Alpha-Strike style lists but they might not perform as well as they previously did.
Do you think what we’ve seen so far means the end of the Alpha-Strike?
