Calgar has done some insane things from breaching and slaying the Tyranid Hiveship Behemoth Primus to holding the gate against waves of Orks, but there are one thing that really stands out in the fluff as a full on act. This act is from 'The Battle of the Sepulchre' where Calgar essentially Falcon Punched an Avatar of Khaine to pieces. This event is the one I'll be proving, can Marneus Calgar slay an Avatar.
First up, the Avatar. There will be six tests, three with a basic Avatar and three with my common Avatar setup (Disarming Strike and Fast Shot). The average of each test will be used so I'll be doing some hard math... not really, just some basic calculations, also all references to Wounds mean unsaved ones.
Test one, Calgar charges the Avatar (basic). If Calgar charges into an Avatar of Khaine expect to see some terrifying results, the average wound output of the Avatar who strikes first due to Initiative is 1.3 wounds which isn't enough to kill Calgar outright so Calgar gets to fight, his average damage output is 2.1 Wounds on an Avatar this solely came down to the fact that the Avatar's Invulnerable Save is a mere 5+, so prolonged combat would definitely see Calgar slaying the Avatar. Test two, locked in combat. Locked in combat is and interesting one were both of them have the same average of 1.2 wounds so it's going to be a fist fight to the end and a long one which can swing either way. Test three, Avatar's charge. 1.6 for Calgar and 1.7 for the Avatar, what I found interesting was that the Avatar loses purely because of the Invuln. Save being so bad.
Anyway on too the real stuff, my Avatar. Test four, Calgar charges. First of all the Avatar's Disarming Strike, which 'disarms' the opposing character, rending one of the disarmed characters Close Combat Weapons (i.e. Power Fist, Lightning Claw, Force Weapon, stuff like that and even unique gear too) completely useless. The test for Disarming Strike is simple, each player rolls a dice and adds it to the character's WS if the Eldar player wins or gets the same, he chooses a weapon to nullify, if the other player wins however it's effects are negated. Also the Eldar player gets a +1 to this roll, obviously the Avatar never fails to disarm Calgar (WS10 +1 with a roll of 1 still beats WS6 with a roll of 6), so Marneus has no more Gauntlets of Ultramar. Calgar inflicts 0.4 wounds, now this means on those really lucky occasions Calgar still hurts the Avatar, on his side, the Avatar still only averages 1.3 wounds, hey that matches the first one so at least he is consistent. Test 5, Locked is Combat. Avatar's results are identical to the last 'Locked in Combat' test with an average of 1.2 wounds, however Marneus has a abysmal average 0.1 wounds! he is not going to kill the Avatar like that. Test 6, Avatar Charges. Avatar stands up with a nice 1.8 average wound ratio, in 2 out of the 10 rolls the Avatar inflicted 3 wounds on Calgar too. Calgar got a 0.2, which to be honest should also apply to the last result too, but averages are averages and he just had better luck this time around.
Final Thoughts. In all honesty Marneus Calgar is quite capable of taking down an Avatar of Khaine, as long as he is wearing his Gauntlets of Ultramar and even still the fights against my Avatar aren't really fair, not because of the dirty Disarming Strike trick but because when this fluff first came up in the codex was before Disarming Strike was even invented. Either way, it's quite possible that Calgar can kill an Avatar, it still all comes down to the luck of the dice.
6 comments:
Since the gauntlets are a pair of pore fists wouldn't the avatar only get to disarm one?
@swanson4969
Gauntlets of Ultramar:
"Each Gauntlet of Ultramar can be used as a melee weapon with the following melee weapon profile. The combined pair can also be fired as a ranged weapon, using the ranged weapon profile below."
Take that as you will, but I'd interpret it as there being two distinct weapons listed as one Relic for convenience. Since the Guantlets aren't specialist weapons, under this interpretation he'd still be able to dual wield with the disarmed 'ccw'. So the only thing disarming him could do is instead take away his power sword at initiative, which doesn't help here anyway.
Hi guys, I always thought that they counted as one because of the fact that they are in one Relic spot, however they are a pair, I've never seen nor fought a Marneus Calgar in my years of gaming so I'll leave the interpretations out there. I totally forgot he had a Power Sword too so he could have inflicted more wounds even without the Gauntlets... anyway I don't think I'll ever fight a Calgar since I haven't encountered many Ultramarines players even with the new CT.
I'm not sure of my interpretation, but it's definitely an uncommon situation. I've never seen Calgar on the table either, but have had my own THSS Belial take down an Avatar.
I've been tempted more than once to try out drop pod Ultramarines. I'd need to experiment with both Calgar and Tigurius to see which to use (or perhaps both!). Combine a whole lot of Tac marines with some support. My short list of things to try would be stenguard, honor guard, thunderfires, and a storm talon or two. Points fill up far too quickly, so Calgar definitely eats into the support allowance, but I think it'd be fun to see him on the tabletop.
I hear you! I play Terminators, Sternguards, Legion of the Damned, Ironclad Dread (I have a MotF) and Centurions in my Carcharodons (it's a heavily Infantry/Drop Pod based) and they just eat up so many points it's ridiculous, it is good since I don't have to by a lot of models which saves me some cash. Also good job with Belial, that dude is a beast and your opponent in that game did something I would never do... Charge a powerful HQ like Belial with my Avatar.
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