Cold One
Vallis
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Ah right, I wanted to math these guys.
10 Chargers melee: 6.67 from lances, 8.89 from bites, 15.56 total - when fighting on objectives, 22.23 (yikes!) And none of their damage is contingent on actually charging, which is a bit weird for a cavalry unit having "charge" in their name, but I take it.
5 Hunters ranged: 2.1 (oh my)
5 Charger melee with Cold-Blooded Unity: 4.4 from lances, 5.56 from bites, 9.96 total - when fighting on objectives, 14.44
5 Hunter ranged with Deadly Cohesion: 2.1 (oh my oh my)
damage for mixed group: 14.17 total - when fighting on objectives, 18.62
5 Hunter joining the charge: 1.25 from clubs, 5.56 from bites, 6.81 total (not advisable because of activation problems, just for completion's sake)
total damage in this case (if both units survive to strike, lol): 18.89/25.43
Conclusion: Hunters DOA, Deadly Cohesion rule = game design fail. Running five Hunters to increase the damage of 10 Chargers is still not worth it given how fast the Chargers are going to die.
I ran the numbers, and got different ones for the chargers, so I checked both our work to see what was wrong, and I think I found it. The chargers come out a lot better than you calculated, because the lances and fangs each have 3 attacks, not 2!
So a unit of 10 chargers has 31 lance attacks (with the alpha) and 30 fang attacks. That gives them a base average damage of 23.67, or 34 on a contested objective! And at rend -1.
A unit of 5 chargers comes out at 12, or 17.33 contested. Even that's really good for lightning fast skink calvary.
As for the hunters, I agree they don't fare as well, but while supporting chargers, they're not completely worthless. A unit of 5 has 11 attacks (alpha again), so will do a base damage of 2.8. It's at rend -2 so it can even put a scratch in tough enemies, but it is only a scratch. But with Deadly Cohesion, they can fire twice, so that bumps it up to 5.6. Add in Cold-blooded Unity and they will add another 1.8 to a unit of 5 Chargers' damage, or 3.4 damage to 10 chargers. I'm going to tack it on to the hunters, though, because I'm evaluating if they're worth the points. So that's an additional 7.4 damage this turn from the hunters (or 8.9 with 10 chargers), all at -2 or -1 rend. If the chargers are contesting an objective, instead of boosting them with 1.8 extra damage, they would add 3.6 extra damage to 5 chargers (or 6.9 to 10 chargers), for a total of 9.2 damage for the turn (or 12.4 with 10 chargers), at decent rend. Oh, and the 10 chargers don't have to be in the same unit. If two units of 5 chargers both target the unit that the hunters shot at (even if they did no damage), both units of chargers get the +1 to hit. Heck, the hunters could even split their shooting attack between two different units if the charger units want to attack different units. So it may be prudent to support multiple units of chargers with one unit of hunters.
9 or 12 extra damage in a turn can be pretty significant. Especially because this can be done without putting the hunters into melee, so they don't immediately get slaughtered and can still act as a fast (move 12") screen later on. But as I write this, it occurs to me that the point of hunters may not to be to do direct damage, but that their main purpose may be to buff the chargers. They can buff all the chargers in one large unit, or all the chargers in multiple units. They can buff chargers attacking one unit, or one or more units of chargers attacking multiple units. And the hunters don't even need to hit those units; they just need to target them.
Are hunters worth 150 points? I'm not sure. At first glance, it seems like another unit of chargers for the same cost would nearly always be better. But if one unit of hunters can buff so many chargers reliably and for free, and maybe do some damage of their own, they might just be worth the cost. After all, us Seraphon players are all too familiar with bringing a skink priest or starpriest mostly to buff other troops. But it does seem like the more chargers you have, the more value you will get out of each unit of hunters.
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