In our Hammer of Math series we look at statistics in Warhammer and other games, tackling key topics and looking at how probability can affect outcomes. In this week’s Hammer of Math, we’re looking at the new Flawless Blades unit from Codex: Emperor’s Children, and examining their damage output and the likelihood of losing a model when they call upon their Daemonic Patrons for help.
One of the most interesting units in the new Codex: Emperor’s Children are the Flawless Blades. These elite warriors are ostensibly the Chosen/Possessed of the Emperor’s Children, peerless bladesmen who have been granted daemonic power by malefic patrons. This is represented in battle with their Daemonic Patrons rule:
Rule: Daemonic Patrons
Each time this unit is selected to fight, it can call upon Daemonic Patrons. If it does, then until the end of the phase, when a model in the unit makes an attack, an unmodified wound roll of 3+ scores a Critical Wound. At the end of the Fight phase, if this unit called upon patrons and no enemy models were destroyed by attacks made by models in this unit, then one model in your unit is destroyed.
That’s a very interesting rule, with an interesting drawback. At its base, scoring critical wounds on an unmodified 3+ means that your unit will wound any enemy unit in the game on a 3+, regardless of Toughness. This would also mean triggering effects that score on Critical Wounds, such as Devastating Wounds, but Flawless Blades don’t have that capability so it’s really just about automatically wounding. Still, given they have S6 blades, that’s not a bad deal.
The real challenge here comes from their attacks: Each Flawless Blade has 3 attacks in melee with Blissblades, which hit on a 2+, are S6, AP-3, 2 damage. While that’s good enough to nearly guarantee you’ll kill a marine if you charge in, against a bigger target like a vehicle or monster, that’s a lot less certain.
So let’s look at the damage output of some Flawless Blades and talk about what a unit of these guys can kill, when it’s worth it to push even knowing you’ll lose a model, and how you can boost their output.
vs. Bog-Standard Marines
If you’re going into a unit of marines, chances are you’re going to be eating good. With Toughness 4, a 3+ save, and 2 wounds apiece, you only need to score a single unsaved wound to fell a single model and stave off Patron Retribution. Even for three Flawless Blades, that’s going to happen less than 1% of the time, as the chances of any single attack scoring a kill are about 46%. On average three Flawless Blades will kill 4.2 marines with no buffs, while a full unit of six will kill 8.3. Add in [SUSTAINED HITS 1] from some source and you’ll get *pretty* close to killing 5/10 models on average.
vs. Terminators
So let’s start talking about those tougher targets. Against Terminators we have a threat that’s tougher – T5+, with 3 wounds, and a 2+/4++ save. That will significantly reduce the effectiveness of our weapons, as we won’t get full value out of having 2 damage and AP-3 on our weapons. At this point an individual attack can’t kill a model, and our expected damage per attack is only 2.8. That said, three models should still expect to kill 1.25 Terminators before being hit back, and a full unit will likely kill 2.5. Sustained hits adds another .2 models here. That’s not great, and that’s if we’re going into regular 3W Terminators and not something like Deathwing Knights, who will just laugh off the attacks and punch the Flawless Blades to death. A full unit of Blades invoking their Patrons will likely kill two Deathwing Knights on their own in that first activation.
Lucius the Eternal
This is where we need to add Lucius the Eternal, the only Character who can join a unit of Flawless Blades. Lucius doesn’t give the unit any help, but he can re-roll Hit and Wound rolls against CHARACTER, MONSTER, or WALKER units, and he comes equipped with his own nasty melee weapon, the Blade of the Laer, which drops 6 Attacks at S8, AP-3, 3 damage. Lucius gets great benefit out of being able to punch up against bigger targets and contributes a ton more damage on his own. Lucius will kill 1.7 Terminators each time he attacks, and will clear 2.6 if that unit has a Character. He’s essentially a requirement if you want the Flawless Blades to actually punch up into bigger targets.
Note: We incorrectly stated that Lucius gave his re-rolls in an earlier version of the article. That has been fixed and we regret the error.
vs. a Rhino
Let’s say you needed the movement boost, so you charged your Flawless Blades into an enemy Rhino. That’s a T9 target with a 3+ save and 10 wounds. If you go in with three Flawless Blades without invoking the patrons, you’ll likely score around 4 damage. That jumps to 8 with a full unit. And if you’re invoking the patrons that will improve to 8 and 17 damage, since it doubles your odds of wounding. That means to kill a standard Rhino you need to have a full unit of six models invoking the patron.
vs. an Armiger/War Dog
The stats are similar into an Armiger or War Dog, where going up to T10 doesn’t change anything, but you will be looking at 12W, and that means you are only likely to score a kill with a full unit of Blades invoking the Patrons. Lucius can help push you over the top here, and his re-rolls will come into play since the baby knight is a WALKER target, and with the re-rolls and the 3+ critical wounds from his unit, Lucius will likely do around 13 damage on his own. That said, without the 3+ criticals he’s far less dangerous, and likely to only score 6-9 damage.
On that note, let’s see how big we can get.
vs. The Big Threats
Alright, it’s time to go big. How good can a unit of Flawless Blades be? Well, let’s assume we’re running them in a Peerless Bladesmen Detachment, where they’ll get [SUSTAINED HITS 1], and in a pinch, we can improve their AP by 1 with the Cruel Bladesman Stratagem. This will let us effectively get to AP-4 against big threats like Knights which rely on a 3+ save.
Against a Knight
The cool thing about that 3+ critical wounds bit is that Toughness just doesn’t matter when these guys square up. If a full unit of 6 Flawless Blades charges into a Knight with Lucius attached, Sustained Hits, and Cruel Bladesman active, they’ll dish out an average of 24 damage to the knight thanks to their ability to score wounds on a 3+ the fact that it doesn’t get a save. Adding in Lucius will get you an additional 16-17 damage on top of that. If your knight has a 5+ invulnerable save in melee for whatever reason, that’ll cut down to more like 27 damage on average.
Against a Great Unclean One
Similarly, the Great Unclean One is another big threat, but being a T13 monster doesn’t mean much for our Pink-armoured warriors. What does matter here is the 4+ invulnerable save and the 6+ Feel No Pain, which drops our expected output down to something more like 16 damage. That’s not nearly enough, and if that big green booger is rocking the 4+ feel no pain well, your output drops to something more like 10 wounds and you’re very likely going to lose an extra model for failing your patrons at the end of combat.
Against a Land Raider
What about a non-WALKER vehicle threat? Well if we go into a Land Raider with Lucius and the boys, we’re looking at an average of 30 damage without having to spend a CP on improving our AP, and we can average 20 damage on just the six Flawless Blades invoking their Patrons.
Final Thoughts
It’s pretty clear that a full unit of Flawless Blades can take out most of the threats in the game, especially when they have Lucius in tow. There are some exceptions – even Lucius will only barely get you to averaging a single unit kill against Deathwing Knights if you also have Sustained Hits active – but generally you can go into most of the game’s threats. Now whether that’s a favorable trade is much more open to question, as the cost of a full unit and Lucius is pretty high, and that’s before you put them into a Land Raider to ensure they reach the enemy. Once you start losing these guys their output drops fast, so you’ll need to pick and choose your moments – and targets – carefully.
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