How we score 40k units

Every unit on Tactical Reroll gets the same treatment: the dice maths of what it does and what it takes, per point, against the same table for everyone. Here's how a datasheet becomes a tier letter, in plain words.

One table for every unit

Every unit plays on the same neutral table, so scores compare: no cover, Heavy weapons fired standing still, nobody within half range, and a weapon that fires once a game counts a fifth of its shots. Each attack hits, wounds, is saved and does its damage as the core rules say, with weapon abilities such as Lethal Hits, Sustained Hits and Anti-X read into the odds. We use exact averages, the same numbers the calculator's dice rolls settle on, and a test keeps the two in step.

Offense: how hard it hits

Offense is the expected number of wounds a unit removes per 100 points from five stand-in targets:

• GEQ 10 × T3 Sv5+ W1 infantry
• MEQ 5 × T4 Sv3+ W2 infantry
• TEQ 5 × T5 Sv2+ 4++ W3 infantry
• Light vehicle T10 Sv3+ W12 vehicle
• Heavy vehicle T12 Sv2+ W16 vehicle

For each target we take the better of its shooting and its fighting, and the best squad its datasheet's wargear options allow into that target, so a unit isn't judged on a loadout nobody would take.

Defense: how hard it is to remove

Defense is the number of hits it takes to destroy the whole unit, per 100 points, from five kinds of attack:

• Small arms S4 AP0 D1 (bolter, lasgun)
• Special S5 AP-1 D1 (heavy bolter-class)
• Plasma S8 AP-2 D2 (plasma, power fist)
• Elite S6 AP-2 D3 (elite melee, precision)
• Anti-tank S12 AP-3 D6 (lascannon, melta)

Toughness, saves, invulnerable saves, wounds, the unit's own Feel No Pain and its own healing each turn all count.

Percentiles: against every unit

Raw numbers don't compare across targets: removing 3 wounds from a tank is more than removing 3 from a horde. So each of the ten numbers becomes a percentile among every current unit in the game (Legends aside): 50 means half of all units do less per point, 90 that only one in ten does more. Offense is the percentile of a unit's average over the five targets, and Defense the same over the five attackers.

Value

Value is the mean of Offense and Defense: what a unit gives for its points, the two halves weighed equally. It's the number unit pages and tier lists sort by.

The tier letter

The letter is Tier: where a unit ranks in its army by two things players can check, how often the army's tournament lists take it (any placing, the last three months) and how reviewers' free tier lists grade it. The more tournament lists an army has, the more they count, and a reviewer's list counts for less after each balance update. A unit no list takes in a well-played army is D; with too little play to judge, it shows a dash. The smaller die beside it is the letter from our dice maths alone, still experimental: where the two differ, the unit's page says which side rates it higher. Sources, at the foot of each army and unit page, name the reviewers.

Beside the letter, not in it

Two more scores sit beside Value. Utility estimates what dice miss: board control per point, cheap bodies for actions, how far a unit reaches (Fly, Deep Strike, Scouts and the like) and how it supports others; it ranks a unit within its own army. Meta shows how often the army's recent winning lists take the unit, against its most taken unit (100). Neither changes Value.

What the scores leave out

The scores read a unit on its own. Most abilities, auras, detachment rules and stratagems aren't in them, nor Feel No Pain a leader or enhancement gives, nor objectives, movement in a real game or what a unit lets the rest of the army do. That's why we show the meta beside the maths, and why a score is a starting point, not a verdict.

Check our working

Every number on a unit page can be played out in the calculator, with your own cover, range and buffs. About has the details of each score, and if a score looks wrong to you, tell us.