We independently assess all our recommendations. Purchases through our links may earn us a commission.
Once you’ve started progressing a little in Warhammer 40K: Tacticus, you’ll notice that there are two types of offensive equipment that you can give most characters—knives and guns. The differences are pretty straightforward, knives offer a lower crit chance but greater damage, while guns offer a higher crit chance but lower damage. It can be hard to pick between equipping a knife or gun on characters in Tacticus if you don’t understand how crits work. Here’s a quick guide for beginners and veterans that will answer all of your questions about knives and guns in Tacticus.
The Differences Between Knives and Guns in Tacticus
There’s a clear difference between knives and guns in Tacticus. Let’s take a closer look at a common knife and gun that can be equipped by the majority of characters when you first start the game. As you can see from the above image, knives have a 20% crit chance and deal an additional 22 damage upon a successful crit. Guns, on the other hand, have a 35% crit chance but only deal 13 damage upon a successful crit.
Guns crit almost twice as often as knives but deal just a little over half the damage a knife would do. It might seem like a toss-up between the two, but there’s actually one option that is better than the other; however, that depends on what character you’re looking at.
You should know that upgrading an item or increasing its rarity only changes the damage and will never affect the percent chance of criting. Crit chance always stays the same no matter what.
How Crits Work in Tacticus
Every attack, active ability, and passive ability can crit (as long as it doesn’t say that it is unaffected by crits). If we take a look at Typhus in the above image, we can see that his active ability cannot crit, but that his passive can. His basic attacks, both the power damage and psychic damage, can also crit, and we can check the damage and percent chance by tapping the stat directly below his attacks.
As you can see, Typhus has a 35% chance of criting, thanks to the Legendary Infernal Bolt Pistol he has equipped. If he does crit, he will deal an additional 491 damage on top of it. However, this is not ideal, and Typhus would be better off with a knife instead of a gun because of how crits work.
Take Bellator, for example. Their attack deals 6 total hits. In order for the hits after the first one to crit, the first hit must be a crit. This means if Bellator does not crit on his first hit, none of the other hits can be a crit, which is a huge decrease in possible damage. That’s why it’s better to give him a gun, to increase his chances of the first hit criting, then the second hit criting, and so on and so forth. In order for a hit to have a chance to crit, the hit before it must crit.
Going back to Typhus, Typhus only hits once with either his melee or ranged attack. This means it’s better to take the massive increase in damage with a slightly lower crit chance. Typhus is a psyker, so he does hit a 2nd character with his ranged attack, but a psyker’s smite is independent of the crit result of the initial attack, making a knife still a better choice. If you’re confused, we will have a list of what type of weapon is best for each character at the end of this guide.
Should you equip your characters with a knife or gun?
It all boils down to how many hits they do. If their main attack deals multiple hits, you should equip a gun so that they have a better chance of criting across all their hits. If their attacks only hit once, you should use a knife to maximize the potential damage your character can deal. The majority of characters are better off with a gun, and the Aeldari and T’au currently only have guns. Basically, if they’re a psyker or have a 1 hit attack, give them a knife; otherwise, they should be equipped with a gun. Here’s a quick list of every character and whether you should give them a gun or knife.
- Necrons
- Makhotep – Gun
- Imospekh – Gun
- Aleph-Null – Gun
- Thutmose – Gun
- Anuphet – Gun
- Orks
- Snotflogga – Gun
- Gibbascrapz – Gun
- Snappawrecka – Gun
- Tanksmasha – Gun
- Boss Gulgortz – Gun
- Ultramarines
- Varro Tigurius – Knife
- Certus – Knife
- Bellator – Gun
- Incisus – Knife
- Marneus Calgar – Gun
- Death Guard
- Typhus – Knife
- Maladus – Gun
- Nauseous Rotbone – Gun
- Pestillian – Knife
- Corrodius – Gun
- Adepta Sororitas (Due to their trait that increases crit chance, knives are better on all Adepta Sororitas)
- Vindicta – Knife
- Isabella – Knife
- Morvenn Vahl – Knife
- Roswitha – Knife
- Celestine – Knife
- Astra Militarum
- Sibyll Devine – Knife
- Commissar Yarrick – Gun
- Kut Skoden – Gun
- Thaddeus Noble – Gun
- Castellan Creed – Gun
- Black Legion
- Angrax – Gun
- Volk – Gun
- Archimatos – Knife
- Haarken Worldclaimer – Gun
- Abaddon The Despoiler – Gun
- Aeldari
- Calandis – Gun Only Option
- Aethana – Gun Only Option
- Eldryon – Gun Only Option
- Maugan Ra – Gun Only Option
- Jain Zar – Gun Only Option
- T’au Empire
- Sho’syl – Gun Only Option
- Re’vas – Gun Only Option
- Darkstrider – Gun Only Option
- Aun-shi – Gun Only Option
- Shadowsun – Gun Only Option
- Black Templars
- Sword Brother Godswyl – Knife
- Brother Burchard – Gun
- Ancient Thoread – Gun
- Brother Jaeger – Gun
- High Marshal Helbrecht – Knife
- Space Wolves
- Ulf – Gun
- Tjark – Gun
- Dark Angels
- Azrael – Gun
- Thousand Sons
- Yazaghor – Knife
- Toth – Gun
- Abraxas – Knife
Wrap Up
We hope you now know who to equip guns or knives on in Tacticus. Crits are essential for getting the upper hand over your opponents, and the more you understand how they work, the better prepared you will be. If you’re looking for more Tacticus content, you might want to check out our tier list to find out who the best characters are or see if there are any free Tacticus codes you haven’t redeemed yet.
By the way!
Did you know we’re launching a Kickstarter campaign? In the next few months, our campaign for ‘Gentle Jack: The Party Game for Bad Friends‘ goes live! Visit the official website or follow the Kickstarter page to stay in the loop.
