Deep thought: To Rifleman Dread or nought...

I may not always blog about 40k, but when I do, I prefer Dreadnoughts.  I can't help it, I love these big scary machines of doom and destruction.  At one time, not too long ago, I was a purist, I would never take a dreadnought without a big fat close combat to punch face in with.  As time goes on though, things change, and now that normal dreads only ever get 2 attacks, I've come to see them as tanks with feet. There is a lot of hype around the rifleman dreadnought, so I thought I'd crunch the numbers and really take a look at the odds, why did it seem that everyone was so obsessed with these Forgeworld oddities?

Average # of Penetrating Hits by weapon
Weapon Name	AV10	AV11	AV12	AV13	AV14
Assault Cannon	.88	.44	.44	.29	.14
Twin-linked Autocannon	.88	.59	.29	0	0
Twin-linked Lascannon	.74	.59	.44	.29	.14
Missile Launcher	.44	.33	.22	.11	0

  So with those numbers crunched, what are the combined odds of penetrating vs various armors?

Average # of Penetrating hits by combo
Weapon Combo	AV10	AV11	AV12	AV13	AV14
Double Autocannon	1.77	1.58	.59	0	0
Twin-Lascannon and Missile Launcher	1.18	.92	.66	.40	.14
Assault Cannon and Missile Launcher	1.33	.77	.66	.40	.14

  Maybe somewhat predictably, but the Twin-linked Autocannon is definitely the champion in the AV10/11 department, but once they get t0 AV12, they're losing out to the more generic combinations, and obviously over AV12, they have no chance to penetrate at all. If you're facing down a lot of leafblower lists, the Autocannons may leave something to be desired when compared to the TLLC/ML, but if Razorbacks are your bane, then you'll definitely be wanting those Autocannons.

Sadly, this doesn't really make my decision any easier for fitting my 3 heavy-support dreads, but it's nice to see the numbers laid out in front of me.