Blood Talons

How good are they actually?

For those of you who don't know.A Dreadnought armed with a pair of Blood Talons (effectively a Dreadnought sized Lightning Claw) gets an extra attack for each unsaved wound caused with a Blood Talon in close combat.

In true internet form I'm going to ignore the tactical intricacies of 40K and rely on 'Mathshammer'.

Lets give the Furioso Dreadnought the Charge (I'm feeling generous) and lets put him against everybodies favourite generic unit...........drum roll please..........The Tactical squad.

So he's hitting on 3's (WS 6) and wounding on 2's (S6) with a reroll for the fact that the Talon follows all the rules of a Lightning Claw.

Krak grenades can't actually hurt the fucker so we'll definitely get to slice and dice a few guys before the obligatory Power Fist gets a shot.

Round 1

4 Attacks on the Charge, 2.67 Hit, 2.25 Wound, 2.6 with a reroll equals 2.6 dead Marines and therefore 2.6 additional attacks.

2.6 Attacks, 1.73 Hit, 1.44 Wound, 1.68 with a reroll so were up to 4.28 dead Marines so far

1.68 Attacks, 1.12 Hit, 0.93 Wound, 1.09 with a reroll, now were up to 5.37 dead Marines

1.09 Attacks, 0.73 Hit, 0.61 Wound, 0.62 with a reroll, current total 5.99 Dead.

I'm going to stop there for the simple reason that the Maths is now going to be closer to zero than it is to one ;-)

Power Fist guy hits on 4's so is going to hit with 1 of his 2 Attacks followed by a 16.7% chance of getting a penetrating hit and then only a 33% chance of destroying said Dreadnought after that so I'm going to presume the Dreadnought survives unscathed.

Round 2

Dreadnought completely fine, Tactical Squad down to 4 Guys (well 4.01 if your being picky)

3 attacks, 2 Hit, 1.67 Wound, 1.94 dead with rerolls.

1.94 Attacks, 1.29 Hit, 1.08 Wounds, 1.26 dead with rerolls, current total 3.2 dead.

1.26 Attacks, 0.84 Hit, 0.7 Wounds, 0.82 dead with rerolls, current total 4.02 dead.

So according to Mathshammer a Furioso Dreadnought can kill an entire Tactical Squad in a game turn.

And yes I've ignored the Morale test that would have happened at the end of the first round but to be honest the thought that they might get away would have ruined the maths, lol.

Well in conclusion, they seem pretty damn good to me with only 3 noteworthy downsides.

1) Much reduced chance of hurting vehicles so you'll need to Melta infantry out of their vehicles first.

2) Any armour 13 Walker is going to laugh It's ass off while you ineffectually scratch It's Paintwork, Armour 12 Walkers are going to be unperturbed as well.

3) Landraiders and Monoliths become by necessity someone else's problem.

Of course a possible upside is I suppose you can create some interesting target priority issues for certain opponents....maybe?