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I never suggested that orks lacked access to the upper levels of the BP table. I suggested that the BP table plateaus out on killing power quite quickly, and while other types of weapons can be given bonuses to hit in order to allow for more aggressive play, the BP table relies purely on sustain as a way of getting a better than fifty percent chance of hitting infantry, or a one in three chance of hitting a vehicle.
Given that orks cannot reliably advance, they are generally religated to hitting 1 out of every 6 vehicles they shoot at (or one in twelve if the formation is in cover)
For the most part it doesnt matter how big your barrage is, if you dont actually kill anything with it, all you're going to be doing is inconveniencing the enemy with blast markers.
Take, for example, the biggest scariest barrage the game can currently supply, either an 18BP macroweapon barrage or a 27+9d3 BP regular shot, so hell, lets pretend that this shot manages to roll the maximum, and call it a 54BP shot.
there's nothing in the rules to say that the barrage table continues on after 18BP, but if we pretend that it does, there are a few options:
It could increase in BM every 3, and a template ever 11. this is not actually a reasonable interpretation, but it does get a quite impressive 6 templates that each apply 17BM to every formation hit.
A more accurate interpretation would be that it instead increases in difficulty at the same rate as before (so every three batches, the batch size increases by one)
this would result in a barrage that places 5 templates and does 13BM just for shooting
So, lets have them shooting at a fairly common target, a tactical formation. these marines are out of their transports, but touching them, so give the formation cover. hardly optimal defensive position for our rhinos. Now lets assume that this SupaStompa mob is in optimal firing position. All 3 can see, all three are in range. A normal person would want to sustain with this shot, but by now the stompas will have been shot at a bit (probably by this tactical formation if nothing else) and so lets say they have three blast markers on them, so if they attempt to sustain they have a 50% chance of failing and only getting a hold action, at which point they're down a stompa. Still better for them than doubling, but lets see what happens.
So, this massive template shoots at our tac squad. this formation has 9 figures, and is in cover. the barrage has a choice. does it choose to ignore cover, and only shoot at the rhinoes, or does it choose to take the cover disadvantage, and shoot at everything.
Option 1: a double means it gets 3 shots, hitting on 6's, it thus has a 33% percent chance of killing a single rhino, so it places 13-14BM, if it kills the rhino, thats 14BM against a formation of 8, so while it has put a lot of BM on the marine formation, but they're not broken yet. (though they are very close)
a hold action is up to 66% chance of killing something, but the BM tally is down to 11-12.
Option 2: double means it gets 6 shots that hit on 6's, and 3 that hit on 7's. that means it has a 50% chance of killing a single infantry stand, and has a 16.6% chance of also killing a rhino, if we assume it manages to do both (an 8.3% chance) we're now looking at 15BM on a formation of 7, so we actually break the remaining 7 marines.
hold means it should kill a single marine and have a 33.3% chance of also tagging a rhino, but if we assume we kill both, we're down to 13BM and the formation doesnt even break now!
Either result is "I might kill something and they have a load of blast markers that they will likely shed over half of at the end of the turn"
If we instead go with the 18BP marcoweapon shot we're in a similar situation,
if I shoot only at rhinos, double gives a 50% chance of killing one rhino, but I only put out 6 blast markers, so the formation is only a third suppressed, hold is 1 dead rhino but only 4BM,
if I shoot at everything, on a double I should kill a marine stand and have a 25% chance of also killing a rhino, doing a mighty 7 BM, hold is 2 dead infantry stands and a 50% chance of a dead rhino, maybe 6 markers (so still half way to broken)
Remembering that this is the biggest barrage anyone in the game can muster (after a generous "making up rules" interpretation to allow a better than 18BP shot) from a formation that costs 900 or 1050 points, having rolled the maximum possible barrage points, firing from a near perfect position against a suboptimally positioned 275 point basic marine formation.
and the average result is, at best "I break the formation and kill something" or "I kill a third of the formation"
Interestingly, if they need to advance (not at all unreasonable, because of short range) then they no longer have the "hold and shoot" option, and the risk of advancing vs doubling becomes much more severe.
So yes, ork barrages are able to get quite big. But so what?
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~Every Tool Is A Weapon, If You Hold It Right~
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