This is the fourth installment in my series comparing Praetorian Swordsmen + UA to Nihilators as main attrition infantry. The other installments can be found below:
Part 1, Math and Tough
Part 2, a Game of Inches
Part 3, Command and Occupation
This time, I'll look at the offensive abilities of Praetorian Swordsmen and Nihilators. Nihilators are a simpler unit to describe offensively. They have a higher Mat of 7, a higher base P+S of 12, the Reach advantage, and Berserk, which forces them to make another attack whenever they destroy a model in melee during their activations. Swordsmen have Mat 6, two initial P+S 9 attacks which they can exchange for 1 P+S 12 Combo Strike *Attack, Side Step (a 2" advance which ignores Free Strikes whenever they hit with an initial or special attack), and the Perfect Strike mini-Feat. Perfect Strike allows Swordsmen, for 1 round per game, to do a single point of damage to warrior models they hit without making a damage roll.
These stats and abilities make both units very good at destroying most enemy infantry. Nihilators have a higher potential damage output with Reach and Berserk. Good positioning can let an individual Nihilator attack three or four enemy infantry models. The enemy can easily mitigate Berserk by spreading models out, or with abilities which make the Nihilators less likely to "destroy" their enemies (berserk only triggers on "destroyed"). The most common ways to stop Berserk are high Defense (an attack that misses won't destroy anything) and Tough (which saves models against 1/3 of lethal attacks). Any unlucky attack roll or passed Tough check by the enemy will stop the Berserk chain, and potentially prevent a lot of damage to a unit. There are also a few spells and feats which remove models from play before they become "destroyed," which shut down Berserk completely. Swordsmen are more reliable - they always have two attacks no matter what abilities the enemy has. Furthermore, with Perfect Strike, they can continue to threaten very high-Arm infantry units under the effect Shield Wall or a defensive Feat. Nihilators will have to roll for damage. They'll almost certainly score kills on their charge attacks, but subsequent attacks can easily bounce off with high enough armor or bad enough luck. This makes Nihilators better against low-Def units without Tough or Shield Wall, and Swordsmen better against targets with higher Arm or Tough.
Swordsmen are also situationally better at hitting high-Def targets than Nihilators. Whether this is the case depends on how many models the Nihilators can engage. Because of Berserk, the more enemy models a Nihilator unit engages, the more potential Berserk attacks it can make. Swordsmen's two attacks give them an advantage if the enemy is only exposing a small handful of high-Def models (a pretty common scenario), while Berserk and Mat 7 represents a significant advantage if the Nihilators can engage more of the enemy unit. The precise math is certainly doable, but it isn't necessarily a better way to think of the tactics you'll be using in game*. Often, it's better to engage as many enemies as you can regardless of your odds of doing damage, because you want to shut down movement and ranged attacks. Sometimes, it's better to expose only a little of your formation, even if it means engaging only a few of the enemy's model's. Outside of specific warlock spells and feats, it's very hard for either Swordsmen or Nihilators to do much damage to a very high Defense unit, and damaging that unit will probably be a secondary objective to limiting its options however you can.
Against hard targets like warbeasts and warjacks, Nihilators have an advantage due to Mat 7 and Reach. The Swordsmen can do a Pow 12 Combo Strike, which is pretty good in terms of versatility. Beasts and jacks, however, require a lot of attacks, especially Pow 12 attacks, to take down, and Nihilators can make more attacks on a single target with Reach, and those attacks will be more accurate due to their Mat of 7. How important this is largely depends on how many warbeasts you're running. Skorne beasts are very good at eliminating enemy beasts and jacks, and infantry attacks are often best spent elsewhere. However, a unit of Nihilators is better at threatening damage on a heavy target than a unit of Swordsmen, and that can put opponents at a positioning disadvantage.
Finally, there is a disadvantage to Berserk. The more effective it is at killing enemies, the more likely it is to kill other Nihilators. This makes fully committing a unit of Nihilators to combat a little risky. Commit too few, and bad luck might mean you do little damage to your target. Commit too many, and you'll likely lose models to your own attacks. Good positioning can certainly mitigate Berserk's weaknesses, but with Nihilators' 7" Command radius and the rules for charging (specifically that chargers must always turn to face their targets directly), that kind of positioning can be tricky to manage.
Overall, Swordsmen and Nihilators are nearly equal offensively. They are great at taking out standard enemy infantry, and not especially useful at taking out heavy targets or high-Def enemies. Swordsmen are slightly better in fairly common special situations, like Tough or higher Armor 1-wound opponents, but Nihilators have a higher potential damage output against many enemies who don't have those abilities.
*Nihilators are solidly better than Swordsmen in situations where they can engage at least two enemy models per Nihilator. There are significant diminishing returns for every enemy engaged by multiple Nihilators, since once it's removed, it will deny both the first attack and any additional Berserk attacks a group of Nihilators could make on it. Swordsmen are better in situations where fewer enemies are exposed. They can take the best advantage of their multiple attacks to hit dodgy targets.
It's also worth noting that without a Mat buff, Swordsmens' two attacks break even, probability-wise, with a Nihilator's single attack against Def 17 (6/36). At Def 18, Nihilators have a bit more accuracy than Swordsmen (3/36 vs 2/36), and at Def 19, Swordsmen go back to having the advantage, since they'll always have a chance to hit (needing 12's) on 2 dice.
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