Warhammer 40K Tabletop Thread XLII: The Dice Make Fools of Us All

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At their current stats, an Autocannon only ever outperforms the Heavy Bolter against T6.
They are equal against T7.

At every other Toughness Value, a Heavy Bolter does better.

Really? That seems odd. Lets go through it, assuming Imperial Guard because their math is easier and they can easily take lots of both.

Toughness	Heavy Bolter	Autocannon
T3	1.0 wounds dealt	0.8 Wounds dealt
T4	1.0 Wounds dealt	0.7 Wounds dealt
T5	0.8 Wounds dealt	0.7 Wounds dealt
T6	0.5 Wounds dealt	0.7 Wounds dealt
T7	0.5 Wounds dealt	0.5 Wounds dealt

The complicated part comes from rerolls. With Heavy Bolters benefiting more from rerolls to hit, and Autocannons from rerolls to wound. Considering that rerolls to hit are generally pretty easy to get, I'd say the Heavy Bolter is the clearly superior choice. But the difference is actually pretty close. The only spot the Heavy bolter really outshines the Autocannon is T3 and T4. Oh, and T8. Everywhere else is nearly even or in the favor of Autocannons. Still T4 and T8 are pretty massive points of contention. That's where you want to perform better, so yeah, 9 times out of ten, Heavy Bolter is the way to go. Makes me wonder what T6 stuff we've got in the game though.