Are Hierophants the Best Unit in 40k?

In my last Apoc game, the suggestion that Hierophants were the “best unit in the game” had come up and I immediately poo-poo’d it.  In order to determine what the best unit is, we really would need to define what it means to be the best unit.  I’m guessing it would have to be some combination of:

1. Abilty to Move
2. Psychic Abilities
3. Effectiveness in Assault
4. Effectiveness in Shooting
5. Durability
6. Force Multipliers
7. Points cost effectiveness

Essentially, how well does it do in each of the four phases of the game, plus how well it stands up to damage, enhances the rest of your army and is cost effective from a points perspective.  I don’t really want to break down each of the categories in detail, but let me try and we’ll see how I do.  I’ll try to break them down on a 10 point scale for each.

1. Ability to Move:

Movement takes various forms throughout the game.  Most units move 6″ per turn and can run another d6″, so that’s really the baseline.  I can’t really think of too many units that move less than that, but there are a few that are immobile (obviously those will be the 1 on my scale) and others that move as if they’re in difficult terrain at all times.  So maybe our 1-10 chart looks a litle like this:

1. Immobile
2. Random uncmovement
3. Half move (like spore mines)
4. Slow and purposeful
5. Normal 6″ move
6. Slightly faster units like Hormagaunts who get an extra 3″ run
7. Units with a 12″ move like tanks or bikes
8. Jetbikes or jump infantry
9. Fast Flyers or flying monstrous creatures
10. Teleporters (units that can deep strike anywhere on the table as a move)

With this scale, Hierophants rate fairly well in movement, being faster than a 7, but not quite as fast as the nonsense that is jetbikes.  We’ll give them a 7.2.  Clearly the units that do really well in this area are things like flyers and jetbikes.

2. Psychic Abilities:

This is going to be a hard area to really rate a unit as psychic abilities are all over the map: some are attacks, some are force multipliers, and so on.  How can you create an objective scale that compares warp blast versus invisibility?  That would be truly difficult to achieve.  Lucky for us, the Hierophant has no psychic abilities and no psychic defenses, so we don’t really need to worry too much about this.  We’ll give him a “1” here and move on.

3. Effectiveness in Assault:

Assault effectiveness is really a combination of base stats (WS, Attacks, & Initiative) plus damage output, plus special rules.  I’m going to try to come up with an arbitrary formula to quantify these.  I’m going to work under the assumption that the stats and damage output make up the majority of this, plus special rules (like stomp) may provide the icing on the cake.  let’s use the following as a baseline:  Stats = 40%, Damage Output = 40%, Special Rules = 20%

The formula for that looks something like this: ((WS%+I%+A*10*2+S*10*2)/6)*.4+(100*7/6-(100/6)*AP)*.4+((SR-1)*25)*.2

The numbers are derived as follows:

• WS – Weapon skill matters a bit, but it’s not a huge deal (ultimately for our purposes it only means do you hit things on a 3+ or a 4+.  The defensive property of WS is not considered as that will fall under durability).  That’s a relatively minor change so we’ll decrease it’s total impact on the stat total.  Since the value of WS isn’t linear, I’m using the below chart to assign a value to each stat.

WS/Initiative	% Effective
1	2
2	10
3	35
4	50
5	60
6	70
7	90
8	95
9	99
10	100

• I – Initiative is another semi-important stat as it helps you strike first.  This factors into durability somewhat, but isn’t a huge deal into damage output otherwise.  We’ll also decrease it’s impact on the stat total and use the same chart as WS for overall effectiveness.
• A & S – Between attacks and strength, these are the biggest deciders.  We’ll use multiply each of these stats by 10 to determine their value in the equation.
• AP – AP value formula = 100*7/6-(100/6)*AP value of attacks.  NOTE: AP – counts as AP 7.
• SRV – Special Rules formula = (Special rule chart result-1)*25
  • 1 – Special rules are a hindrance
  • 2 – No special rules
  • 3 – Special rule provides minor benefit
  • 4 – Special rule provides major benefit (or multiple minor benefits)
  • 5 – Special rules provide multiple major benefits

Given that formula, the Hierophant provides a whopping 89.3% effectiveness, translating to a 8.9/10 for the combat phase.  See below for a comparison chart vs. other units in the game using the same formulas:

Unit	Value
Guardsman	14.33333
Space Marine	18
Heavy Weapon w/ Lascannon	19.66667
Marine Sarge w/ Psword	23.33333
warhound	40
Flyrant	40.33333
Thunderhammer	42.33333
Swarmlord	66.6
Transcendant C’tan	78.86667
Bloodthirster	86
Hiero	89.33333

Undoubtedly, the Hierophant is high up on the list–and I can’t think of a unit that might be better (though I’m guessing there is one or two). Maybe An’graath?

4. Effectiveness in Shooting:

Like assault, this is going to have to be a fairly complicated formula to determine.  It’s going to be a combination of BS, Number of Shots, Strength of Weapons, AP of Weapon, Ability to hit multiple targets (ie. blast/template), and special rules.  Realistically, I’m not sure any one of these is more important than others, so I’ll weigh them all equally in the formula.  That gives me an average of the following:

• BS formula =IF(BS<6,BS*1/6,((BS-6)*1/36+5/6))*100
• Shot Formula = Shots*5 (This based upon the average shot being 1 and the most shots I could think of on a single weapon is the Punisher cannon at 20)
• Strength Formula = Strength*10
• AP – AP value formula = 100*7/6-(100/6)*AP value of attacks.  NOTE: AP – counts as AP 7.
• Multiple Targets formula = TargetChart-1*1/7
  • 1- single target only
  • 2- equivalent of 3″ template
  • 3- equivalent of flamer template
  • 4- equivalent of 5″ template
  • 5- equivalent of 7″ template
  • 6- equivalent of Apoc flamer template
  • 7- equivalent of 10″ template
  • 8- more than above
• SRV – Special Rules formula = (Special rule chart result-1)*25
  • 1 – Special rules are a hindrance
  • 2 – No special rules
  • 3 – Special rule provides minor benefit
  • 4 – Special rule provides major benefit (or multiple minor benefits)
  • 5 – Special rules provide multiple major benefits

Based upon those numbers, the damage output for a given unit is as follows:

Unit	Value
Guardsman	21.94444
Marine	29.16667
Flyrant	40.83333
Heavy Weapon w/ Lascannon	42.22222
Leman Russ	43.68254
Hiero	47.5
Vendetta	48.05556
Basilisk	50.62698
Warhound w/ Turblasers	63.40476
Transcendant Ctan – Seismic Assault	81.66667

The numbers on this chart are skewed higher than the numbers on the chart before. I’m ok with this because you can generally shoot more than you can assault in the current edition of 40k. Likewise, I should also mention that I used 2 shots for the marine’s bolter and an average 21 shots for the C’tan’s attacks. Likewise, I only used the battlecannon from the Russ for comparison, though it can also shoot a lascannon and sponsons as well.

This really puts the Hierophant in the middle of the pack.

5. Durability

This one is going to be hard to compare as we’re going to have to come up with a way to systematically compare vehicles vs. creatures.  It’s going to include some combination of toughness/AV/, wounds/hull points, ability to get cover, armor save, invulnerable save and special rules.  To try to make this easier, I’m going to just straight compare hull points to wounds–I don’t think there will be many arguments against that reasoning.  For toughness vs. armor, that is a stickier subject.  I’m going to use each face of a vehicle separately and compare them directly using the following scale:

• AV 10 = Toughness 6
• AV 11 = Toughness 7
• AV 12 = Toughness 8
• AV 13 = Toughness 9
• AV 14 = Toughness 10

They’re not direct comparisons, but that’s fairly accurate.  A STR6 weapon will need a 4+ to wound toughness 6 and can’t hurt something that is toughness 10.  It would likewise need a 4+ to glance an AV10 vehicle and can’t hurt an AV13 vehicle, so it’s relatively similar.   The only real problem is that, due to the way the “to wound” chart works, creatures with a comparable toughness are immune to one strength lower than a comparable vehicle would be.  For instance: a toughness 6 creature can be wounded by weapons that are at least strength 3, but an AV 10 vehicle (str 4 is required to glance such a vehicle).  Furthermore, vehicles have a chance (with low-AP weaponry) to be killed in a single shot, and there is no equivalent for models with toughness.   Since I don’t know how to adequately model these in a quick fashion, I’ll ignore the differences and recognize a flaw in my system.

EDIT: I’ve gone back and given each vehicle the equivalent of a 4+ save in my calculations because without that the numbers were showing that a landspeeder was somehow less durable than a marine.

To come up with a formula for durability, the highest priority should be weather or not you can even be wounded, then some level of protection/ignoring the wound/then how many times they can be wounded before being destroyed.  As such, my proposed formula for durability is something like:

Toughness / AV = 35%, Wounds = 30%, Saves = 25%, Special Rules = 10%

To get to this, I’ll use these numbers:

• Toughness = T*10
• Saves = SV*Likelihood+InvSV*(1-likelihood)
• SRV – Special Rules formula = (Special rule chart result-1)*25
  • 1 – Special rules are a hindrance
  • 2 – No special rules
  • 3 – Special rule provides minor benefit
  • 4 – Special rule provides major benefit (or multiple minor benefits)
  • 5 – Special rules provide multiple major benefits

save	Raw	likelihood of save chance
7+	0	0
6+	1.666667	16
5+	3.333333	32
4+	5	48
3+	6.666667	64
2+	8.333333	80
1+	10	100

With those numbers I’ve come up with the following results:

	Toughness Factor	Wounds Factor	Save Factor	Special Factor	Overall Score
Hierophant	31.5	30	17.5	8	87
Marine	14	3	10.66666667	4	31.66666667
Thunderhammer Term	14	3	20	4	41
Guardsman	10.5	3	2.666666667	4	20.16666667
Land Raider (AV14)	35	9	6	2	52
Leman Russ (AV13)	31.5	9	6	2	48.5
Drop Pod (AV12)	28	9	6	2	45
Land Speeder (AV10)	21	6	6	2	35
Heavy Weapon Team w/ Lascannon	10.5	6	2.666666667	4	23.16666667
Bloodthirster	21	18	13.66666667	6	58.66666667
Ctan	31.5	18	15.16666667	4	68.66666667
Valkyrie	28	9	6	8	51
Warhound	35	27	6	5	73
Flyrant	21	12	10.66666667	8	51.66666667

7. Force Multipliers

Unfortunately, like psychic abilities, this is going to be a hard one to keep track of. Just by having some units, you get a bonus to the rest of your force. For example, some HQ units allow you use their leadership or confer special rules to your army just by being in the list. Fortunately for us, the Hierophant doesn’t have any such special rules to compare against, so we’ll omit this from our calculations.

8. Points cost effectiveness

This can be determined by seeing the average scores granted per point cost. If you assume all scores are relatively equal (dangerous, I know) you can get the following chart (compared against some of the baseline units and some of what I’d consider to be the best units in the game).

	Move	Assault	Shoot	Save	Points	Average Stat Per Point
Hierophant	72	89.33333333	47.5	87	1000	0.073958333
Warhound Titan – Turbolasers	72	40	63.4047619	73	720	0.086251653
Transcendant Ctan – Seismic Assault	90	78.86666667	81.66666667	68.66666667	700	0.114
Bloodthirster	90	86	0	58.66666667	250	0.234666667
Flyrant	90	40.33333333	40.83333333	51.66666667	230	0.242210145
Leman Russ (B.Cannon only)	70	0	43.68253968	52	150	0.276137566
Valkyrie	90	0	48.05555556	51	170	0.278022876
Basilisk	70	0	50.62698413	48.5	125	0.338253968
ThunderHammer Terminator	50	42.33333333	0	41	45	0.740740741
Heavy Weapon Team w/ Lascannon	50	19.66666667	42.22222222	20.16666667	35	0.943253968
Marine	50	18	29.16666667	31.66666667	15	2.147222222
Guardsman	50	14.33333333	21.94444444	20.16666667	5	5.322222222

Of course, there is a lot of room for error given all of the assumptions I’ve made to this point, but this should serve as a reasonable starting point for a quantitative argument about which units are the best. This chart really skews towards cheap units, demonstrating that a guardsman is a great buy at 5 points per model–but we all know they can’t take out most anything on the list (a lasgun isn’t enough to hurt most things on the list).  Since the Hierophant is so expensive, this chart skews him towards the bottom of the list in terms of value.

So yeah, the numbers need to be taken with a grain of salt, but even if you debate numbers here and there it does illustrate a point: A Hierophant doesn’t have the same damage output as a comparable points value in most any of these units. I maintain that an army full of IG lascannon heavy weapon teams is about as unstoppable as it gets. The only units in this chart that rate higher are the base marine/guardsman, who really can’t hurt anything over toughness 7/AV 10.

Of course, you could go about this a completely different way and pit these forces against each other. I really don’t like this method as some units are simply not designed to take each other out. For instance, a standard space marine can’t hurt a hierophant (well, maybe with a krak grenade), so there’s not much point to pitting the two against each other). Likewise, a basilisk could kill a hierophant, but it’s simply not designed to do so–he kills infantry or vehicles far better than monstrous creatures. Though if you did put the lascannon teams against the Hierophant, you’d get 9 squads of them, each firing 3 shots per turn, they should kill him in four turns, assuming no cover, a completely average amount of hits/wounds/saves and that the Hierophant is killing two squads of them per turn. Of course, he won’t average that many kills anyway (only 2.5 kills per turn–assuming the guard aren’t in cover).

If the Hierophant goes first and can maintain killing two squad per turn, he should come out barely ahead of the IG weapon teams–but since they can spread out and take advantage of cover, it just isn’t realistic for him to do so. Also consider that the guard can fit into more places and can split fire to up to 9 different targets, and that makes them a clearly superior solution to me.

That’s not to say that the guard are the best unit in the game (that’s probably a distinction owned by one of the Necron forces), but that they’re just better than a Hierophant.

You could math it out with the other units as well:

• 22 thunder hammer terminators kill the beast in a single round of combat (losing only 1.6 in retaliation–before he stomps).
• He actually wins against four flyrants by a hair.
• Against 5 Valkyries, the math is close but the Hierophant wins. Against six Valkyries (1020 points), the Valkyries eek out a win.
• Against a warhound (72% of the cost of the Hiero) in a shooting battle, the Warhound does 3.2 wounds per turn; the Hiero does 4 hull points of damage in return. The warhound kills the hiero in just over three turns, while the Hiero kills the Warhound in the same amount of time (two voidshield and 9 hull points).

Again, I don’t like these comparisons because they’re unrealistic and don’t (necessarily) allow a unit to do what it’s designed to do (the Hiero would presumably run away from the thunderhammers and charge the Warhound–if it got a chance. But hopefully that helps to justify why I think there are a multitude of better units than the Hierophant. It all basically comes down to the cost of the big guy. Frankly, he’s too expensive to be the best. Sure, he’s a solid unit, but in the grand scheme of things, an army would likely be better off with most anything else on the list than him (excepting the base marines/guard).